Short Fuse Long Odds

<p>Jax hates stools. He hates counters that are chest-high. He hates looking up at everyone. But mostly he hates not getting paid. Captain Jax is a pilot with a Napoleon complex and a corvette held together by duct tape and lizard spit. He's five-foot-six of pure spite in a galaxy built for giants. When a slime-mold broker offers him a retirement-level payday to transport a biological sample to the edge of the Drift Jax doesn't ask questions. He just wants the credits. Big mistake. The sample isn't a virus or a politician. It's a seven-foot-tall ten-thousand-year-old Progenitor goddess named the Archetype. She's ancient she's arrogant and she's the key to a weapon that can turn stars into magnifying glasses. Now Jax is being hunted by the Celestial Vanguard-a cult of human supremacists who want to burn the galaxy clean-and a fleet of bounty hunters who think his head would look great on a wall. His crew? A radioactive rock-man who bakes bread that glows a sniper lizard with an attitude problem and a neurotic spider-bot who loves polka. They're broke broken and outgunned. But they have one advantage: nobody looks down at the rat until it bites them in the ankle. Strap in. The warranty is void the oven is hot and the fuse is lit.</p>