Rogue Star releases one week from today. – Cameron Cooper's Science Fiction

For the last few weeks, I’ve been talking about Danny Andela, where she finds herself at the beginning of this book, the people around her, and the rather alarming question of whether someone really is out to get her—or whether Danny herself is the problem.

I could tell you more.

But we’re close enough now that I think I’d rather let Danny do the talking.

So here’s the complete first chapter of Rogue Star, Book 2.0 of the Hammer Down series.

If you’ve been wondering what Danny’s life looks like after the events of Solar Whisper, this is where you find out.

Enjoy.

—1—

Lyonesse was between seasons, when the pulse of the city slows; the sunlights are downgraded, and the tourists go home. Transients stay in the tram station instead of heading into the city for blackened wraps or vat pho, because the street stalls are gone, leaving behind dust that the scheduled evening rain turns into greasy grime smelling faintly of sweat and fryer oil. Domes grow quiet. Screen volumes are lowered, so the newsfeeds from across the Four Quarters don’t scream for attention anymore. You can feel the residents and citizens sigh and relax.

Between seasons, the nights are supposed to be a bit safer. The old spacers drink their cheap short-file spirits slower. No one tries to prove anything. Instead, they grow maudlin about the old days, out among the stars listening to the music of the universe, before they shuffle off to their little boxes and ex-military micro-apartments more sober and earlier than usual.

I had relaxed, too. That’s probably why the universe picked tonight to remind me who I was.

The Last Horizon was a tourist trap. Fake star charts decorated the walls. Bits of fuselage that might actually be authentic covered the ceiling and the front of the long bar behind which Jersey poured drinks and missed nothing going down in his establishment. The tables were tall and the chairs were printed replicas of Terran military bridge officer stools, with fake compression backs worn to a shiny patina by eager tourists trying them on for size.

Normal chairs and tables could be found at the back of the bar, over by the tankball tank and the wall screens. The wall screens showed city newsfeeds tonight, not the usual looping footage of colourful stars and nebulas that looked nothing like the space I knew. The regulars used those tables, because it was too easy to fall off a stool after a few drinks, even the short-file shit.

There were no genuine spacer bars anymore. There were no active spacers to use them. But The Last Horizon, which the locals called The Last Lie, drew to the low tables at the back of the big room those who remembered a time when space was where you lived.

I knew everyone by name. I’d carefully memorized names and faces so that I could use their first names the second night I was on the job and all seven hundred and three days since. The old ex-spacers liked that and tipped better.

Most of them rubbed along tolerably well together. But there’s always at least one idiot. Usually young and brash and unable to hold their liquor. Usually.

Everyone knew to leave Rosemary alone after her third drink of the night. She had gone through rejuvenation recently, but had chosen a more mature cosmetic age, that had left her with silver hair glinting among the black. She wore her hair short, spacer boots with unevenly worn heels and dark oil stains, and her hands always had nicks and scratches on them. No one knew for sure what she did or where she lived, but the consensus was that she worked with tools and heavy equipment, probably a machine shop somewhere. Rosemary was for sure not telling anyone.

I slid her fifth drink across the table so it sat close to her fingers and nodded. She nodded back.

That was when Veska dropped into the chair opposite Rosemary and settled his glass in the middle of the puddle of good quality scotch that was Rosemary’s preferred drink.

Arin Veska was the Horizon’s trophy holder for most stupid person in the room. Unlike most of his ilk, he wasn’t young. Apparently, his learn-by-your-mistakes bone had failed to knit together as he grew older.

Rosemary scowled and picked up the glass I’d just put down.

I smiled at Veska. “Hey, the view of the tank is better over on that table, Arin. Let me wipe it down for you.” I pointed to said table.

“Talking to Rosemary.” His deep forehead shadowed his eyes. He studied the tall, solid woman, and gave her a watery smile. “Sittin’ all alone ain’t good.”

Rosemary rolled her eyes. She wasn’t looking at him.

“Arin, really,” I tried again. “C’mon. I’ll get you a fresh drink. On the house.” Jersey would probably dock my pay to cover it, but this crowd would do almost anything for a free drink.

Next table over, two men watched us. This was their third night at the Horizon. I hadn’t been able to learn their names yet, which was mildly annoying. One of them, the one with dark hair and a scar on his jaw, seemed amused. The other, with silver sideburns, narrowed his eyes, measuring. The hand that wasn’t holding his glass was under the table.

Veska leaned forward over the damp tabletop. It was as though I wasn’t there and hadn’t just offered the most powerful inducement in a bar waiter’s arsenal. “We never have had a chat, Rosie. Why is that?”

Rosemary’s cheeks hollowed out. “Fuck off,” she muttered.

Veska clicked his tongue and shook his head. “No, seriously. I was just watching you from over there and realized. We’ve never talked, you and I. You talk to Danny and Pete and Carbonarcle and Joe and the others, but not me. So I thought, you know, it’s time to change that.”

I gave up. If he was going to be that stupid, then he could live with the consequences. I headed for the bar, where Jersey had the next order ready. The tall glass with the green juice and two squat glasses told me it was Joe and Elli’s order.

I heard Veska say something, behind me, but didn’t bother tuning in to pick up the actual words. I had better things to do.

Jersey shook his head when I reached the bar. “If she breaks the table, it’s on you, Danny. You couldn’t’ve shoved him to another table?”

“I tried,” I said flatly, adding the fresh drinks to my tray. “But you know Veska. He’s got it into his head that they are pals and should behave like it.”

Jersey made a sheeshing sound and turned to start the next round of drinks.

That was when Rosemary roared and threw the table aside.

I spun in time to see the table land up against the legs of one of the empty tall tops at the front of the room. It rolled around in a semi-circle, right into the legs of the stools, there.

It hadn’t broken. My lucky day, I thought, which wasn’t my first mistake today.

Rosemary was up on her feet, her shoulders back, displaying her full height, while Veska rose to his feet, blinking, trying to put together what had gone wrong.

On any other night, it might have ended there. It should have ended there. Rosemary was a loner and protected her solitude loudly and with force, but never against others.

I think even Veska had finally figured out she wanted to be alone. He lifted his hand. I think he was going to hold it palm up. Surrender. Maybe a stuttered apology, then onto the table I had pointed out to him.

Before he could finish his slow, slow reaction, the pair at the next table, Sandy Hair and Black Hair, leapt to their feet.

They held knives. In both hands.

“Get away from her, asshole!” Blacky shouted.

Both lunged for Veska.

I got there before they did. I was triggered into it, old instincts flaring at the sight of two armed men against a single, sodden idiot.

It wasn’t really a fight. They had two blades each. I couldn’t afford to string it out. I played for keeps. No numbing or disabling holds.

In fifteen seconds, they were both lying in a puddle of scotch that had been tipped off the table when Rosemary threw it. Blacky clutched his belly, holding in blood and possibly his intestines. Sandy was still breathing, but not moving.

Veska had backed way off. He stood between the tables, a hand on the back of an empty chair, trembling. His eyes were wide.

Rosemary studied the two men at her feet, then looked at me. “I spilled my drink, Danny.”

I lifted my arm to check why it was stinging. The razor thin slice running across my triceps started to bleed as I looked. “I’ll get you a fresh drink,” I told Rosemary. I showed her my arm. “Wanna pick up the table and straighten it up?”

She considered the cut. “I can do that,” she said with a magnanimous tone.

Blacky twisted his head to look up at me. “Danny? Danny Andela?” he croaked.

I recognized that tone.

“The Iron Hammer?” Blacky added, right on cue. “Fuck me bloody standing,” he added bitterly.

“I’m not the fucking Hammer,” I shot back.

“Was the Hammer, though,” someone added, from the tables. I mentally thanked them for the help.

“If I’d known it was you….” Blacky said, with a groan.

“What?” I snapped. “You wouldn’t have tackled an unarmed, drunk man with two blades each?”

Blacky swallowed. “He was bothering the lady.”

“The lady had it handled,” I shot back.

Blacky ignored that. “Danny Andela…serving drinks.”

“I’m fucking security, you moron. I serve drinks to stop myself dying of boredom.”

The other drinkers were all watching in silence, but as I glanced at them, they turned back to their tables, losing interest.

It was that sort of bar…when the tourists weren’t there.

I kept my arm up in the air so the blood would take longer to drip to the floor, because I was the bunny who got to clean it up later.

Jersey was already waiting at the side of the bar with the medical wand and towels. I went over to him and presented my arm.

“Police are on their way,” he murmured. “They can fix them up in their first aid unit.”

I nodded. That was usually how we played it, if the combatants weren’t actively dying. I hissed as the wand sterilized the cut.

“You were sloppy,” Jersey said.

“You may have noticed they had two knives each.”

“That’s why I pay you the big bucks, to deal with that sort of shit.”

There was a lot I could have said in response, most of it dealing with his idea of big bucks. Instead, my attention was pulled to the big screens on the wall.

The conversations at the tables had already returned to normal volume, even though two men lay on the floor near them, both bleeding. I couldn’t hear the commentary on the screen, but the feed strip on the bottom gave all the relevant headlines while a man with short, dark hair and eyes that looked yellow to me, and strangely animalistic, stood beside a woman in a business gown.

…the original dulcimer returns from self-imposed exile…Shine’s death widely misreported…questions about its return will all be answered, agent assures…

Shine. The first dulcimer ever made. He had worked for a few years, earning applause, adulation and honours…and a lot of money for his agent and owners, before abruptly disappearing.

Everyone said the thing had been destroyed by jealous competitors because by then, a lot more dulcimers had appeared. Investigations had proved nothing, and hadn’t uncovered the dulcimer, either. Now, apparently, Shine was back.

I still wasn’t sure what I thought about dulcimers. So far, all of them had been constructed for entertainment purposes, which meant I didn’t have to deal with them. That let me avoid thinking about them. That was probably a good thing because I squirmed when I saw one or talk turned to dulcimers and the cheap, incredibly authentic performances they gave. Sports, singing, dancing, acting, variety, comedy… there was a dulcimer for every taste these days, most of them the shades of actual performers from days gone by, programmed to behave identically…at least that was what the agents and owners of dulcimers claimed.

I had serious doubts that they just happened to stumble across the DNA of some comedian out of human antiquity and also happened to know enough about that performer to program a dulcimer to be just like them. But people who didn’t squirm when they saw a dulcimer seemed to find their performances entertaining enough to pay a lot of money to see them.

More power to them. I wouldn’t mind having that sort of income, myself, only the path to earn it left a sour taste in my mouth that not even Jersey’s paint-stripper gin would remove. I preferred to sleep at night.

Jersey turned off the wand and slapped an analgesic pad over the top of the thin pink line on my arm. “’bout time you came for dinner, Danny.” His voice was gruff. He didn’t look at me directly. “Arold is making spare ribs.”

My mouth watered at the idea. I flexed my arm. The analgesic was already working. “Can’t, sorry. Gotta change the seals on the back-end gaskets.” And I realized I had looked away, too.

Jersey nodded and packed away the still clean towels and the first aid equipment, his semi-annual “let’s get to know each other better” gesture done for this season.

The city police arrived. I didn’t know the lieutenant, which made me sigh as I got up to greet them. I would have to answer the same stupid questions all over again. Yes, I laid both men out. That’s my job. No, I didn’t have help. Yes, I’m that Danny Andela. No, I’m not the Hammer. Not anymore. Yes, I choose to work here in this crummy tourist trap at the ass-end of the city. No, it wasn’t making me any less visible in this damn city.

Dammit.

Want to keep reading?

Rogue Star releases November 5, 2026.

Danny Andela has been many things: soldier, strategist, diplomat, the Iron Hammer. Now she’s broke, disgraced, and increasingly uncertain of her own judgment. Keeping her head down might be the sensible thing to do.

Unfortunately, keeping her head down is slowly drowning her. And when Danny starts pulling at a few loose threads, she discovers that someone—or something—may be very interested in making sure she stops. Then again, perhaps everyone is right about her.

It’s not paranoia if someone really is out to get you. Right?

Preorder Rogue Star now: