The Last Honest Fuel Stop

Podcast Episode Summary

What is independence worth when the company holds the lease on everything, including the truth? Juno Duvall spent twenty years flying freight for Galleon Consolidated and converted every credit of it into Stonefist Station, the only fuel depot for six transit days in any direction, population one. Then a shot-up courier limps onto her docking clamp carrying Chiyo Solis, a wounded medic with a sealed container mag-locked to her thigh: proof that a mining colony full of families is being poisoned by the company’s own extraction method, sealed off and rebranded as a quarantine.

Soon behind her comes Inspector Ronin, a compliance officer with a clean suit, a polite smile, and the authority to take Juno’s license, her station, and the first thing that was ever hers. The gun on Juno’s hip stays holstered. The deadliest thing on the station turns out to be a log archive that uploads whether anybody lives to hear it or not. A gritty sci-fi space western about what honesty costs on a frontier where the company owns the paper, the fuel, and the air, and one operator who decides it doesn’t own the record.

Thanks for listening to Sci-Fi Signals. Be sure to check out The Intelligence Bulletin from Author Daniel P. Douglas on Substack for more podcasts, written articles, and links to all my books. And remember, fly smart and stay sharp. The frontier doesn’t give second chances.

Voices provided by Spoken AI

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit authordanielpdouglas.substack.com