Safe Haven in the Stars, Elizabeth F. Shearly, 24 Nov 2026

“You’re damn fine at your job. Next time an assh*le like me comes to you with a harebrained plan that’s going to blow us out of the sky, you tell him to go to hell.”

Mila is a good reactor tech, and she’s dead set on proving it. After years spent working under her parents—and not seeing a penny for her time—she’s finally landed a real job on a junker that can barely support the crew.

Orin isn’t here to make friends. As a life support specialist, it’s his job to keep everyone alive, including the green as hell reactor tech their captain picked up on a whim from some backwater planet.

But the air supply—and everything else on board—is barely functional, and only two cabins have air, which means Mila and Orin will be sharing. It’s just for seven days, until they get to the nearest station to patch up their ship. If their ship can even make it that far.

Unless they can work together to keep the ship running, the whole crew is in danger of suffocating out here in the middle of nowhere with no power, no air, and nowhere to go.

Firefly meets Leap Year in this forced proximity sci fi romance with plenty of spice.