Mitwa

MITWA is a YA novel that will appeal to readers who prefer their sci-fi up in the unforgiving cold of space, where the difference between life and death is measured by the thickness of your ship's hull.

When Omesh is forced to leave Earth behind to work his uncle's curry stand on a Corporate space station, he learns the name of his new home is no joke: built from ships and wreckage clinging precariously to the outside of the station, "Barnacle Town" is an apt description. Unprepared, Omesh is flung into this loud, confusing world and forced to learn harsh lessons about the legally questionable existence of a town outside official society and the street politics of a life under anarchy.

Homesick, Omesh soon makes friends--including Rabia, the intriguing, pink-haired Corporate girl with a well-earned reputation for underground zero G fighting--who make being a Barnacle Towner sound almost appealing. But when they uncover a plot to scrape Barnacle Town free from the station--and scatter people, wreckage, and homes into merciless space--they find themselves lost in the slum's tangled political landscape.

With the power structure of Barnacle Town in disarray and Corporate society indifferent or ineffective, the only options left seem to be a slow death in the black of space or a fast one crashing down to the moon below. But a high-ranking Corporate prince may know another way...if he's willing to betray his own family. Which he just might do for the sake of the girl both he and Omesh love.

Together with Tak, the redheaded rikishi from the sumo school--which happens to be the only sizable spaceworthy building in Barnacle Town--Omesh and Rabia concoct a daring, outlandish plan that involves pitting a high-ranking family against itself, disobeying every order they've ever been given, and bucking so much more than tradition. With everything they've ever known hanging in the balance, can three teens save an entire population from themselves--and extinction?