McCall Richter is a Bounty Hunter who travels with her android partner Scipio and her dog Junkyard. Despite the tyrannical empire's negative views of autistics like her, she's achieved great success, and can even afford her own spaceship, the Star Surfer. But when the cyborg Sheriff Axton and his pilot Arjun "Dash" Deshmukh temporarily take over the Star Surfer in order to transport prisoners to Frost Moon 3, she's afraid they'll discover Scipio's secret: she liberated him two years ago from a facility where he was used as a slave. What she doesn't know is that Dash is part Starseer, meaning he has psychic powers, that he's a member of the Alliance, and that he's only working with Axton so he can rescue one of the prisoners.
A prequel novella called Junkyard was published in 2019.
Fractured Stars contains examples of:
- Angry Collar Grab: Axton warns Dash, "If you so much as piss wrong, I'll pound you into the deck and report you to HQ for insubordination." Dash says, "Insubordinate... pissing?" Axton picks him up by the front and shouts, "Watch your tongue, or I'll blazer it out!"
- Bait-and-Switch Accusation: Axton tells Dash, "I looked you up, and I know what you are." Dash thinks Axton has figured out that he's a Starseer and an Alliance member, until Axton says, "You used to be a bounty hunter, the rogue bastards." Axton goes on a rant about how much he hates bounty hunters while Dash sighs in relief.
- Bathroom Stall Graffiti: Martin Niemöller's "First they came for the Socialists
" poem is popular with members of the Alliance, who write the last line on stall doors in public bathrooms. - Big Guy Rodeo: During a prison brawl, McCall jumps onto the back of one of the thugs attacking Dash.
- Binary Suns: The Empire rules over a trinary star system, with planets following a variety of orbits.
- Cyborg: Young people who seem like promising soldiers are put through a variety of hormonal and surgical enhancements and assigned to work in the military for a certain number of years. McCall is surprised to see Axton working as a sheriff because a cyborg his age should still be under contract with the military.
- Family Theme Naming: McCall and her older sister McKenzie were born during their mom's Scottish historical romance novel phase.
- Half-Breed Angst: Dash is the son of a mundane father and a Starseer mother. He grew up in a Starseer enclave where he was mistreated because his powers weren't as strong as everyone else's. He left the planet to become a pilot, but now he hides his heritage from everyone else, because Starseers are widely hated and oppressed and seen as a dangerous threat.
- Handshake Refusal: In Junkyard, McCall and the man who hired her work out a deal for her payment. Once they reach an agreement, he sticks out his hand, but McCall only nods firmly, hoping that'll be enough, since she Hates Being Touched.
- Hesitation Equals Dishonesty: McCall deactivates Scipio and hides him in a closet in a locked room. She tells Dash that the empty cabins are "mine for work or, uhm, storage." Dash immediately guesses that she's hiding something illegal in one of the "storage" cabins.
- Institutional Apparel: Inmates on Frost Moon 3 wear neon green uniforms to make them easy to spot.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: A nonhuman example. In Junkyard, McCall starts calling the titular dog "he" before she's sure of his sex because she feels that "it" is dedogizing.
- Left for Dead: Shortly after the protagonists arrive on Frost Moon 3, someone manages to escape from the underground prison and onto the landing pad. The four guards all shoot him with blazers and leave him to die in the snow.
- Lightning Lash: Prisoners on Frost Moon 3 are punished with an e-whip, a lightning-like cord of energy that leaves deep burn marks.
- Limited Wardrobe: McCall has multiple copies of each of her two outfits - one for when she's on the ship, and one for when she's on a planet.
- Mutants: Starseers are descended from Old Earth colonists on the now-destroyed planet Kir who developed mutations that allowed them to survive the planet's radiation levels, but also gave them mind-reading and telekinesis.
- Over-the-Shoulder Carry: Dash knocks out some prison guards, carries them over his shoulder to the control room, and locks them in a closet.
- Punch a Wall: As Axton and Dash are preparing to transport their prisoners from the damaged ship to the Star Surfer, the ship's AI nags them about the lowering oxygen levels. Axton punches the control panel to shut it up.
- Security Blanket: McCall's brass charm bracelet, which her mom got her when she was nine as a reward for not sucking her thumb anymore, and which she still wears everywhere. She calms herself by spinning it around her wrist to hear the clinking of the brass charms, and even chews on it once when she's particularly upset.
- Sex Slave: Scipio's previous owner used him for sex as well as labor.
- Single-Biome Planet: The aptly named Frost Moon 3 consists almost entirely of freezing wastelands. Free people live in domes, while prisoners work in underground power plants and mines. The people who run the prisons have engineered robotic predators that look like a cross between a bear and a panther to kill prisoners who try to escape. There's also some real wildlife, which is kept alive by airdrops of frozen vegetables and meat. The planet Frost Moon 3 orbits is mentioned to be covered in ice.
- Surveillance Station Slacker: During the Alliance members' escape from prison, Dash finds the guard who's supposed to be watching the security footage instead watching holographic porn on his netdisc. Dash briefly considers leaving him alone, since he probably won't look at the screen long enough to notice their escape, but decides it would be safer to knock him out anyway.
- Throwing Off the Disability: Kids who show signs of autism are usually taken in for normalization surgery. McCall and McKenzie are spared the surgery because their maternal grandmother was forcibly given brainwashing surgery that caused her to go insane and eventually commit suicide when their mom was ten, giving her a lifelong fear of hospitals and the empire. McKenzie eventually voluntarily got the normalization surgery as an adult. McCall never did.
- You Are Number 6: The twelve combat androids McCall purchases towards the end go by their serial numbers, which are all somewhere in the J-2900s.
