Freelancers of Neptune — Jacob Holo

All he wanted was a simple job to make ends meet. What he got was a mysterious cat girl, a shot at a hoard of treasure, and a whole lot of trouble.The Solar System ain’t what it used to be! In the far distant future, Saturn’s rings are gone, Mercury is a gas giant, and Earth is remembered only as a unit of measure. Nearly godlike AIs reshaped the Solar System in eons past, but they too are now nothing more than a fading memory. Captain Nathaniel Kade cares for none of that. He’s but a simple freelancer from the orbital ring of Neptune, struggling to make ends meet and to keep his understaffed spaceship from falling apart. All he wants is a decent, uneventful job to help put his finances back in order. What he receives instead is Vessani S’Kaari, a mysterious and beautiful cat girl who tried—and failed—to steal a ship belonging to a band of space pirates. Vessani’s in over her head and is clearly more trouble than she’s worth, but she also has a lead on what may be the greatest treasure trove of lost technology the Solar System has ever seen. Nathan pulls her butt out of the fire, and together they begin to assemble a team to seek out this long-lost bounty. But other interested parties have their eyes on the same prize; the Jovian Everlife has dispatched a fleet of warships with one of their elite, many-bodied agents in command, and he’d like a few words with Nathan and his new crewmember.