Chapter 4
The TransGalactic pilot was as good as her word, bringing the shuttle down with barely a shudder. Luis wished the clouds were a little lighter so he could see the mountains rising up all around them. Short, narrow valleys cut through soaring peaks covered in a dense canopy of trees in every shade of green he could imagine. Broad rivers wound through the larger valleys, many carrying wide barges he guessed were full of ore.
Their landing port sat in a wider valley, but the surrounding town couldn’t have held more than ten thousand people. Stone and wooden buildings dominated, with none terribly large or tall. Electric personal transports were plentiful, but more people walked than drove.
Luis had visited many small, slow-paced settlements like this on leisure-heavy planets, or
