Dwarves in Space

Thousands of years after the jewelry's destroyed, the sword reforged, the dragon ridden, and the indecipherable prophecy translated into a recipe for sugared biscuits, the dwarves turned to that final frontier: space. And along came the elves, orcs, gnomes, trolls, ogres, and those vermin-like upstarts, humans. Dwarves in Space is Tolkien merged with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in a horrific transporter accident. The Elation-Cru is not the flashiest ship, nor the newest, or even has all of its bolts attached; but she can fly. Well, sort of wade through space, and that's when all the parts are working. She supports a sugar addicted dwarven pilot, an elven engineer, an orcish doctor, a silent djinn, and the lone human trying to hold the entire thing together with duct tape. Variel, the captain, has been hiding from a secret for the past five years and time's finally run out. When she goes against her common sense and fights to save her onboard assassin/renter from a job gone sour, she finds herself before an ex-colleague that knew her in her previous life as the Knight of the realm. The entire ship is sent on a mad dash across the universe - from a decaying space station, home to the wackiest species the galaxy has to offer, down to the Orc home world, which wouldn't be so bad if Variel hadn't spent most of her previous life fighting in the war against them. Chances of survival are nil and slipping fast.

Family, it's a kick in the teeth on every planet. Five years have passed since Variel changed her name, her face, and her credit rating in order to leave the Knights. After kicking Sovann, the knight who came after her ship, out the airlock, she thought she was free of her past. Unfortunately, she forgot to take care of that pesky husband problem. Thanks to legal finagling, he's tracked her down and has her ship and crew on lockdown unless she plays ball, but all Variel wants to do is knock his teeth up into his brain. The Elation-Cru are on a mad dash across the galaxy to secure enough unicorn (the drug, not the horse - though consuming it will cause you to grow a horn and excrete rainbows) to pay off her husband and unlock the ship before it explodes. Drug dealing was the last thing Variel wanted to get pulled into, but Marek always brought the worst out in her. If he keeps pushing it, he's going to see why she was a feared Knight of the Crest Empire. All the characters are back; Ferra the elven engineer, Orn the sarcastic dwarven pilot, Monde the orc doctor, Brena the loopy bard, Taliesin the not-brooding assassin, and WEST. Can't go anywhere without WEST, their not-quite-sane artificial intelligence, it would set the toaster on fire in protest.