"Whatever world you're in, the drop looks the same. Pour sulphuric acid down your throat, the drop's what your throat looks like after. There's rips in space, rips in time, the raw torn seams of over-buckled branes. Tattered lengths of cosmic string hanging limp like cat-clawed knitting. The drop's an abomination, somewhere no sane person would go."

In a universe rapidly falling apart, Tanager Lee and her sentient dropship Tumbleweed race to deliver a precious cargo to a distant world. But to do so they have to ride the drop, and it's not long before they run up against a whole heap of trouble.

It's bad enough when the stowaway wrecks the ship. The unexpected Planck bombs only make things worse. Worse still, Tanager no longer knows who she can trust.

Tanager Lee's used to operating alone. If she wants to fix her ship, complete her mission and avoid getting chewed up by monsters from another dimension, it's time for her to decide who her friends really are.

Riding the Drop links

• Read the story online at Jim Baen's Universe