Rustbound Orbit: The Corsair’s Kettle Stories

They're not soldiers. They're not heroes. They're just trying to pay for their next tank of oxygen. Captain Silas Vance is a tired veteran of a forgotten border war, running from a past that refuses to stay buried. His ship, The Corsair's Kettle, is an obsolete scrap-heap held together by mismatched parts, duct tape, and sheer stubbornness. Along with his eccentric crew-a teenage mechanical prodigy, a disgraced high-society medic, and a soft-spoken heavy-gravity mercenary-Silas takes any dirty contract he can find just to keep his crew flying, fed, and free. But when a seemingly simple smuggling job on a lawless space station goes violently wrong, the crew uncovers a catastrophic corporate secret: an experimental cybernetic super-weapon designed to erase independent colonies from the galactic census. Suddenly, the crew of the Kettle isn't just running from their debt-they're running for their lives from the ultimate corporate armada. Armed with nothing but their wits, a newly printed shield-piercing phase turret, and a mile-long stolen stealth dreadnought, Silas and his crew must draw a line in the cosmic dust. To survive, this family of freelancers will have to stop running and finally break the chains hunting them down. The Rustbound Orbit is a fast-paced, high-stakes space opera perfect for fans of Firefly, The Expanse, and classic ragtag crew sci-fi adventures. Packed with explosive space battles, witty banter, and deep-space heists, it's a journey about finding family at the very edge of the map.