The Burning Lanes
by R. S. Breed
A joint goodwill expedition opens a great road in peace — and proves, in public and beyond doubt, exactly how much it is worth taking by force. The cold war draws its first blood.
The Causeway is the chokepoint that controls a whole deep-frontier region, and Captain Daniel Cross has been handed the mission of his life: a joint goodwill expedition — centre, frontier, and the Nhál under one banner — to certify it open and prove the roads can be shared. It is everything he believes in, and it goes beautifully. But every place the expedition opens, it also makes worth taking; and to hold the fragile coalition together, Cross reaches for a little more control — and learns too late that the peace he is securing and the war he is arming are the same act.
*The Reach* is the action-adventure thread of the Fracture Cosmology — a five-book frontier fleet saga. *The Burning Lanes* is Book 3: a complete, standalone adventure that rewards readers coming up through the series. Best entered from *The Reach, Book 1 (The Wrong Number)*. The cosmology has many doors and no required reading order; other good first books are *The Signal*, *Cohort*, and *Wide Sky*.
Era
2242–45
Series
Book Three of The Reach
Price
Kindle Unlimited
Audiobook: US$4.99
Included with Kindle Unlimited
Book Three of The Reach. Part of the one sequence in the universe written to be read in order — start at book one.
Wondering about order? Where The Reach sits, and what to read first →
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Who you’ll meet
Artefacts from this book
The archive →In-universe records, blueprints, and documents drawn from The Burning Lanes — the institutional paper trail behind the story.
The Causeway — Navigation Chart
A navigation chart of the Causeway — the chokepoint that controls a deep-frontier region — with the joint goodwill expedition route plotted. A map of a road being opened in peace, and of the fronts the next war will follow.
The Causeway Goodwill Expedition — Joint Charter
Geneva · the Combine · the Nhál Accord
The best document in the war — a charter signed by three powers who do not trust each other, sending one expedition to prove a great road can be shared. It is generous, it is sincere, and it certifies open a region that everyone will shortly want to own.
The Sundog — Privateer Cutter, Threat Assessment
ISCA-FC · Operations Directorate
A standing file on the frontier's most dangerous freelance gun — Captain Mara Quint and her cutter, the Sundog, hired where a Combine wants a thing done without a uniform on it. Brilliant, fast, lethal, and contemptuous of every protocol that might have made her safe to be near.
The Goodwill Expedition — Route & Itinerary
ISCA-FC · Expedition Command
The filed route of the joint goodwill expedition — five frontier stops on the road to the Causeway, each one a working place rather than a pretty name. Read it once as a tour of the golden age at its height. Read it again as a list of the fronts the next war will follow.
'The Last Window' — Cell Manifesto & Bloc Bulletin
a splinter cell · and the bloc that exploited it
Two short documents bound together: the manifesto of the cell that split even from the splinters, and the bloc bulletin that used their atrocity. A right diagnosis rotted into murder, and a war machine that could not have asked for a better gift.
Spindrift — Grey-Transit Berth Registry (Extract)
Spindrift Orbital · grey-transit office
An extract from the berth-and-lease registry of Spindrift — the old salvage orbital the Accord never fully governed. Read alone, it is a junkyard's paperwork. Read by the right pair of reckless hands, it is the shape of a bloc quietly preparing to seize a road the moment peace weakens.