Misplaced

He was raised in a junkyard. Nobody told him why.

Eric "Wolf" Wolfram has spent eleven years hauling scrap for Dar, the fence who took in two orphans and never said where they came from. Wolf has a talent he has been ordered to hide: put a halo rig on his head and he can run any machine by thought alone. In the Kingdom of Iraklis, that kind of interface belongs to nobles. Wolf is a kid with dirty hands, a short temper, and a knife.

Then a side job goes wrong, the constables come looking, and the only way off the planet is a berth on a privateer.

Now Wolf is the newest swab aboard the Neufchatel, learning the trade the hard way: boarding actions, firefights, and the unwritten rules of a crew that lives on prize money. He is good at it. Better than a junkyard kid has any right to be.

On a captured ship he finds Mariella, a shuttle pilot her own crew left behind. She has a pistol, a guarded past, and no reason to trust him. He teaches her the knife. She teaches him to fly. Neither is telling the whole truth about where they come from, and one of them does not even know it.

Privateers pay well, but pirate rules apply, and some captains take what they want. When one of them decides he wants Mariella, Wolf has to decide how far he will go to keep her safe.

All the way, as it turns out.

Inside:
Boarding actions and shuttle combat
A hero who earns every step up
A romance with teeth
Ship AIs that answer only to those born to command them
A complete story, with more to come

Misplaced is Book 1 of the Valley of Fire trilogy by John Van Stry, military science fiction and space opera set in the universe of his Wolfhounds series. It follows new characters in a new corner of that universe, so you can start here.

The trilogy is complete: Misplaced, To Hand, Lock & Load.

Contains adult language, violence, and sexual situations.