Drusilla sees the flash that means her parents have died in an explosion. She's in a space station, an apprentice aged 16, and her parents were at the space elevator on Mt Kilimanjaro, which was built to send freight up to geostationary orbit. Terrorists seeking separation of the new Lunar state have destroyed the project. Debris now floods the path of anything trying to come up or go down and Kenya, the equatorial country where the elevator had arisen, is devastated. War is declared.

Dru and her fellow apprentices are conscripted, given basic army training in low gravity, shown how to handle rifles and when she shows promise, is trained as a sharpshooter. For relaxation she writes mails to her girlfriend far below on Earth. She gets fitted with a skin-tight smart space suit, learns about tactics and eats food made from algae. But on Earth civil unrest and police actions are in the news, and the loss of the lunar mines is causing economic chaos. Dru is among a team sent to steal a freighter of supplies from the Loonies. Not all lunar citizens are supportive of the terrorists, but they don't get any choice in their actions. Battle is brutal, especially in vacuum where everything spins wildly and a blast of sand can blow a suit apart. Surviving, and having given orders, Dru is made a corporal, but her challenges are only beginning.

In DEBRIS DREAMS the jargon and descriptions are good, especially the delicious sensory experience of showering in zero g, but not always explained. For instance reference is made to L1, L2, L3 etc. the Lagrangian points; a little astrophysics at the time instead of in a glossary wouldn't have hurt. The tale comes across as a blend of 'Starship Troopers', 'Green Mars' and 'The Forever War'. Dru happens to be gay and looks at other women, but in wartime there isn't much chance for a relationship or even a cuddle. The descriptions of deaths by being flash boiled or impacting a fast-floating screw are far from pretty while communication difficulties mean that there isn't always a clear chain of command. A Chinese-American alliance has emerged to get us into space, in this tale, but other social events are less easy to swallow. David Colby has given us a hard-graft tale in DEBRIS DREAMS, full of realism and unpleasantness but friendship and bravery as well.