Iron in the Quiet Dark

A Coalition courier has been dark in the Meridian Drift for nine days , and no one is coming to retrieve it. Salvager Kael Vorne takes the Cormorant in close, matches rotation against the coffin-shaped wreck, and slips through a hull torn open by something that shouldn't exist in Coalition space. What he finds inside pulls him, and every captain watching, into a standoff that no salvage contract was built to survive. Yara Okonkwo is hunting the same secret for reasons she can't say aloud. Deck Officer Thenn is under orders to deny Kael's claim by any means Admiral Brenn Sorel will sign off on. Pell Hammet, Hesh Vant, and Lira Sen each want a different piece of the courier, and Vant's second-in-command is ready to fire first. On the Senate floor, Chief Clerk Barrish brokers between Senator Haedon Quill and Senator Vey Marchett, while Junior Officer Fage holds a line of communication that could save , or doom , the Concord navigator rotting in Coalition custody. Defecting captains circle the Drift with running lights dimmed. Each move Kael makes widens the gap between those who want the courier buried and those who need it to speak. By the time the Meridian Drift gives up its dead, Kael will have to choose: deliver the salvage and walk away rich, or light a fuse that burns the Coalition from the Drift to the Senate , with the Cormorant still parked in the crossfire.