Gold Dust

BORN TO RUN; BORN TO FIGHT
BORN TO RUN, BORN TO FIGHT
DUST KNIGHTS COMPETE IN THE OLYMPIC GAMES
The worlds of three interstellar civilizations vie for honors in the Olympics. The more populous worlds have always dominated the Games. The team from Raylicon, a dying world of scorching temperatures, has never won honors.
But Mason, the coach for the Raylicon track and field team, makes a startling discovery: in the Undercity, a place where crushing poverty exists alongside a culture of dramatic beauty, a group of spectacular runners has existed for millennia.
The Dust Knights are the best of those marvels. With the help of Major Bhajaan, an Undercity native, Mason recruits the Knights. The Undercity faces a civilization they've never trusted, one that sees them as barely even human. Now, they must all learn to work together.
The Imperialate of Skolia needs the Undercity to trust them—for hidden within its enigmatic population is one of humanity’s greatest resources. Their population has a uniquely large concentration of Kyle operators. Kyles can do more than run; only they have the neurological makeup needed to utilize a vital technology, one that gives Skolia its sole advantage over their enemies. The army needs the Kyles, but after centuries of being despised and left to die by the rest of humanity, the Undercity wants nothing to do with them.
Until Angel, one of the top runners among the Knights, joins the Kyle Corps—and dives into a world of neurological marvels, including star-spanning networks that access a dimension with dramatically different laws than our space-time universe.
THE STAKES COULD NOT BE HIGHER AS THE DUST KNIGHTS COMPETE FOR THEIR WORLD—AND THE FREEDOM OF HUMANITY

Catherine Asaro has an M.A. in physics and a Ph.D. in chemical physics from Harvard. She has appeared as a speaker at many places, including Harvard and the National Academy of Sciences, and as a Guest of Honor at science fiction cons in the U.S. and abroad. She is a member of SIGMA, a think tank that advises the government as to future trends. A former ballet and jazz dancer, and now a vocalist, Asaro has performed at clubs and conventions. She is the creator of the popular Skolian Empire Saga, a science fiction series that includes Undercity, The Bronze Skies, The Vanished Seas, and The Jigsaw Assassin from Baen. Asaro is a resident of Long Island, New York.