Drift Protocol
A four-person salvage crew finds a derelict station still running a protocol nobody wrote.
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The Kestrel is the smallest salvage ship licensed to work the Ceres drift, and her crew of four is always one bad job from losing her. When they board a derelict research station to strip its copper, they find the lights on, the air warm and a system that keeps asking them the same question in a language nobody on board speaks. Fast, funny and a little sad, Drift Protocol is a science fiction story about a crew that would rather argue than admit they are a family.
The Kestrel had one working coffee machine, four crew and a debt to the Ceres Salvage Authority that grew faster than any of them could pay it. So when the job board posted a derelict research station in the outer drift, copper wiring intact, Ofelia Reyes took it before the captain was even awake. “You didn’t ask,” Captain Dace said at breakfast. “You were asleep,” Ofelia said. “And we’re out of coffee filters.” That settled it. On the Kestrel most things were settled by what they were out of.
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About the author
Nico Vargas
I grew up in San Antonio reading paperbacks my tía bought at garage sales, most of them missing a cover. Now I live in East Austin, work nights at a hardware store and write in the mornings before the heat gets bad. My science fiction is about people who fix things in places where nothing works right: orbital stations, salvage ships, towns at the edge of a map. My fantasy is about the same people with swords. If you like crews that argue, found families and endings that cost something, you will probably like my books.
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