Light-year Lion — Ash Gray

The princess of Qorlec is back, this time trapped in a zonbiri detainment camp. Secretly carrying what could be the next princess of Qorlec, Quinn is bald, beaten, and often mistaken for a boy. After watching her people suffer for months, she is eventually rescued by her blue best friend, a sarcastic robot, and a team of bickering entirian soldiers. Thus the adventure begins to reclaim her family's ancient space-wand, as well as the bitter alien allies who have since forsaken her people in the two-hundred-year war. Quinn's adventures soon come to a halt, however, when her daughter is captured by the Zon Regime.

Quotes:

“Maybe you could breastfeed Alex for me,” Quinn joked. “Mine are tired.”

“Or I could teach you to spawn a third boob.”

Quinn laughed. “So you are funny.”

“I have my moments.”

-
Ari frowned. “No, no. I am not speaking of a pet. The taevor are not property. We don't corral them and skin them for clothing. We recognize them as equals and we treat them with utmost kindness and respect, as we do all living things,” she said, viciously swatting a bug that landed on her arm.

-
“. . . what do you believe?” Quinn wondered. 

Ari's pale blue eyes darkened. “I believe the universe is just as it appears: a cold dark place.” She looked at Quinn. “And you have my sympathies that you must be its only light.”

-
“It's notta joke,” Varzo said. “Quinn really killed some people with a pen. Six, I think. Or was it seven?” 

“It was seven,” Quinn confirmed, grinning at the tavalin's shock.

Varzo glanced sideways at Quinn's gory pen. “Why're you hanging on to that gross thing anyway?”

“Yes, you probably just dropped six diseases on my counter,” Aridis scolded.

-
“When I met her, I'd convinced myself it was a cold and uncaring universe, where nothing good could possibly exist. I'd convinced myself that people were awful because we'd made it that way.” Thalcu glanced at Mercy, who was listening sympathetically. Thalcu shook her head. “Then I met Quinn, and all that cynicism and sadness inside me . . . it went away. She made me believe in people again because she was good and so p-pure in spite of the world and what it had done to her. To kill her was a crime against all that is good, not just because I love her, but because I do believe she might have been the last truly good person in the universe.”

-
“I've got tree sap in case it falls apart,” Ari said, thoughtful eyes fixed on the crib. “It has the texture and smell of diarrhea but will hold the pieces together well enough.”

Quinn laughed flatly. 

Ari blinked. “What?”

“With anyone else I'd assume they were joking, but you were completely serious, weren't you?”

-
Quinn laughed. The fading light of Ardav reached its pink rays through the staff's red gem, spreading the misty light over her blonde hair until the tips were an orange halo. Zakkor thought the light gave her eyes an otherworldly glitter, as if they were lit from within by flame. He looked at her, standing there tall and powerful in her exosuit and yet so relaxed and content, and he knew that for her, this was little more than a deep breath, a quiet pause before the plunge.