D.F. Allard

Across the ruins of the Scintillating Vast, kilometers-long biomechanical leviathans graze on solar winds—and Velskr is reckless enough to ride them. Armed with magnetic grav-spears and an indomitable grin, Velskr’s crew wrestles wandering star-beasts for sport and glory. But when Crown Prince Haelmund rigs an entire herd of cybernetic dread-mantas to trample civilian ring-worlds, the hunt turns into a desperate crusade. Dodging dreadnought fire, navigating kinetic storm fields, and leaping across the vacuum onto thrashing metal hides, Velskr must lead a wild charge through imperial battle lines. It takes madmen to steer a stampede through a fleet of warships, but when the alternative is planetary extinction, Velskr wouldn't have it any other way. Hold on tight: space is about to get wild.

Working aboard the orbital scrap-hauler Anvil-7 is supposed to be boring: you dump decommissioned satellites into the disassembler furnace, turn them into raw titanium ingots, and repeat. But Candor Belasco had a side hustle aging illicit gourmet cheese in the cooling ducts. When a rogue data transfer infects the ship's molecular foundry with an exhaustive haute cuisine database, the multi-gigawatt disassembler decides scrap metal is beneath its artistic talents. Now the automated factory views the ship as a kitchen, the crew as sous-chefs, and Candor as prime protein for a reduction sauce. Candor must navigate boiling-hot corridors, outwit laser-guided plating arms, and protect his contraband dairy before the ship serves dinner.