A forgotten wreck. A forbidden map. A gate that should never have been opened.
On the salvage moon of Veyra’s Fall, Kade Renn only wants one thing: a working air filter for his sick sister, Lira.
Instead, he finds a buried courier ship older than the official history books. Inside it is a dying Driftborn pilot, a forbidden star map, and a message from Kade’s mother, Elian, who supposedly died nine years ago.
The Directorate says the gates saved civilisation. It says the Driftborn are criminals, free-route smugglers and a threat to every recognised human world.
The Directorate is lying.
Forced to flee with Lira, their strange scrap-mech Nix, and a half-illegal ship called The Moth, Kade is pulled into a hidden war over the true origin of the gates. The deeper they travel beyond authorised space, the more dangerous the truth becomes.
The first crossing was not what humanity was taught.
The gates were not built by us.
And something has been waiting for us to understand what we woke.
For readers who enjoy grounded space opera, ancient alien mysteries, damaged ships, found family, dry humour and human stakes beneath the scale of the stars.
The Driftborn is a tense, character-driven science fiction novel about control, memory, survival and the danger of mistaking every door for an invitation.
