Short Fuse, Long Odds

Jax hates stools. He hates counters that are chest-high. He hates looking up at everyone. But mostly, he hates not getting paid. Captain Jax is a pilot with a Napoleon complex and a corvette held together by duct tape and lizard spit. He's five-foot-six of pure spite in a galaxy built for giants. When a slime-mold broker offers him a retirement-level payday to transport a "biological sample" to the edge of the Drift, Jax doesn't ask questions. He just wants the credits. Big mistake. The "sample" isn't a virus or a politician. It's a seven-foot-tall, ten-thousand-year-old Progenitor goddess named the Archetype. She's ancient, she's arrogant, and she's the key to a weapon that can turn stars into magnifying glasses. Now, Jax is being hunted by the Celestial Vanguard-a cult of human supremacists who want to burn the galaxy clean-and a fleet of bounty hunters who think his head would look great on a wall. His crew? A radioactive rock-man who bakes bread that glows, a sniper lizard with an attitude problem, and a neurotic spider-bot who loves polka. They're broke, broken, and outgunned. But they have one advantage: nobody looks down at the rat until it bites them in the ankle. Strap in. The warranty is void, the oven is hot, and the fuse is lit.