Stella's Echo

In 2118, one year after the Neko Liberation War tore the solar system apart, the treaties are signed but the scars run deep. Leonardo Aurlius is a B-rank bounty hunter scraping by on the Stella’s Echo, a battered corvette he named after the wife he lost. Once a cyber-enhanced covert operative, he watched Stella die shielding innocent Nekokin civilians from the very kill-order he was supposed to carry out. Now he drifts between Ceres Station and the asteroid belt, taking only jobs on the unredeemables—the worst criminals the system has to offer. No gray areas. No second chances. Just enough credits to keep the ship flying and his teenage son Kai fed. But Kai has locked his heart away since the war, and Leonardo’s nightmares refuse to end. When he steps between two orphaned Neko girls—fierce black-eared Rin and wide-eyed little Lila—and a pack of grieving human youths looking for payback, something inside him finally breaks. The war already took his wife. He won’t let it take them. Adopting the girls means dragging two living reminders of the “enemy” into his home. It means facing Kai’s silent fury, dodging anti-Neko militias, and balancing bounty hunts against the growing danger that follows his new family across the Jovian moons and beyond. In the cramped corridors of the Stella’s Echo, four broken souls—two humans and two Nekokin—must learn to trust each other while the solar system still burns with old hatreds. Some debts can only be paid among the stars. Outlaw Star meets Violet Evergarden with cat ears, zero-g dogfights, and quiet redemption. (Genre: Sci-Fi, Space Opera, Found Family, Post-War Drama, Bounty Hunter, Light Novel)