The Cairn is a relay station at the edge of a damaged region of space, run by a compact of governments none of whom expect it to last, with eight thousand people living in sectors that were meant to be temporary. A transport comes back having lived more time than its route allows: exhausted crew, disputed command, cargo that changed on the way. The cargo might save a starving sector or hazard another. A warship captain who's watched a displaced ship go wrong wants it seized, and he's not being unreasonable.
Five books about a place and the people who have to run it. Start here.
- Amazon (Kindle, free on Kindle Unlimited, and paperback)
- Read the opening and see every other store: https://fracturedcosmology.xyz/books/who-the-door-admits/
- Free audiobook on YouTube: Part 1 · Part 2
- The warship captain is right, mostly. Did you want him to win?
- Ester Kade administers without commanding the guns. Did that limitation make sense to you as a set-up?
- The Cairn itself. A deal between governments, or a place with obligations? Where did you land, and did the book move you?
Spoilers for this book are fine below. It's the book's own thread. Anything from a later book or another series, wrap it in [spoiler] tags so nobody gets ambushed.