Stargun Messenger (Paperback or Softback)

Astra Idari lives in the shadows. It's easier that way. A Stargun Messenger hunting thieves who steal the rare fuel that powers starships faster than light, she's afraid to live as she truly is: a human being. Most only see an android with a failing memory stitched together by her ship's irascible AI.

When a job leads her to Gen Emera, the last living star, her humanity is put to the test. Idari discovers a dark secret: starship fuel isn't some trick of physics. It's the blood of the living stars. Idari's work protects a lie: intergalactic civilization is built on genocide.

Idari faces a stark choice. Either she turns Emera over to her employers, who control the fuel trade for a huge payday, or invites their wrath to save Emera. The choice should be simple, but the fate of the galaxy depends on Idari's humanity... and whether she can remember it.

Darby Harn is the author of Stargun Messenger, a Self Published Science Fiction Contest Quarterfinalist, and Ever The Hero, which Publisher's Weekly called an "entertaining debut that uses superpowers as a metaphor to delve into class politics in an alternate America." His fiction appears in Strange Horizons, Interzone, Shimmer, and other venues.