Outland Exile

The world is getting older.The world is getting younger.America is dead and the Unity killed it.After catastrophic wars and the Meltdown, The Democratic Unity rules from its East Coast citadel, leaving the outlands to savages and its strangely altered plants. Providing free health care, employment, computerless surfing, and rec drugs at quite reasonable prices, the Unity mandates retirement at forty before fatigue and error contaminate a culture of youth, innovation, and vigor.Middle-aged seventeen-year-old Lieutenant Malila Chiu, is a veteran officer who, despite well-earned fame, finds her career in tatters. Vandalism at a distant station triggers her demotion. Facing denunciation … or worse, Malila’s one option is to enter the outlands to repair the station herself. At first, the repairs go well.Dropping from fatigue, she wakes to find a hideously ancient savage has murdered her platoon and now holds a knife at her throat, making her the … Outland Exile.