Zero Day Threat by R.M. Olson

SPSFC

Four ex-convicts. One charismatic mastermind. And the most dangerous heist the System has ever seen. Jez is a damn good pilot, and she’s always worked alone. Until she got picked up for smuggling, that is. Now she’s lost her ship, lost her job, lost her reputation, and is on the run from the law. So when a mysterious stranger in a battered pilots coat comes to her with an offer that sounds too good to be true, she reluctantly agrees to listen. All she has to do is fly one little job. Then she gets the details. She and a hand-picked band of misfit ex-convicts will be pulling a heist on Vitali “the Butcher” Dobrev, the most deadly weapons dealer and crime boss in the System. They’ll be stealing tech that could change the course of history. And the government, the mafia, and every enterprising criminal in the System would kill to get their hands on it. Thing is, Jez is out of options. She’s going to have to fly this job, and they’ll have to pull it off. And knowing Vitali, if they fail, dying is the least of their worries. Zero Day Threat is the first instalment in the space opera science fiction series The Ungovernable. Firefly meets Ocean’s Eleven in R.M. Olson’s fast-paced, kick-ass, wickedly-fun series.

Redshift by R.M. Olson

SPSFC 2022

It appears out of nowhere—one moment the sky is empty, the next, there’s a rent in the fabric of space itself. And nothing in the system will ever be the same. In the far reaches of the Rim Mountains, itinerant field-scientist Aran Romeu is searching desperately for the cure to an incurable disease—one that’s slowly killing his best friend. He’s sworn to do whatever it takes to find it. But when the portal opens, and something comes through, he realizes that ‘whatever it takes’ will involve travelling into the uncharted space beyond the portal. And he’s not the only one after the cure, and willing to do whatever it takes to get to it first … In the weighty halls of government, Chief Justice Alba Espina is preparing a political gamble that could change the shape of the system itself. The appearance of the portal shatters her carefully-laid plans and hands her political rival a weapon he could use destroy her—unless she can delay him with the promise of a diplomatic mission through the portal. But the stakes of the mission are higher than just her personal ambition. If her diplomatic mission doesn’t succeed, it might just spell the end of humanity itself. In a remote spaceport, Savina Moya, the system's most talented assassin-for-hire, is on the run again after her latest murder. But when a deadly government agent is sent after her, with instructions to bring her back dead or alive, the diplomatic mission heading into the portal may hold the key to Savina’s survival—if she’s brave enough, or desperate enough, to take it. No one knows what’s beyond the portal. And as the three of them are drawn inexorably together in uncharted space, with no idea who is an ally and who is an enemy—it’s an open question if any of them will live long enough to find out.