Staub und Krone (Dust and Crown)
German-language edition
Five months of radio silence. And for five months not a single gram of ore. As long as Auriga delivered, nobody cared about the colony. Now that the flow has dried up, they send Adrian Voss – on a ship that smells of cold metal and old sweat, with people whose names he doesn't bother to remember.
Nobody tells him what awaits him on Auriga. Maybe nobody knows. Maybe nobody wants to say it.
Shortly before departure a woman comes aboard who doesn't belong there. Her papers carry the same seal as his – but she wears it the way one wears a disguise. And she looks at him as if she already knew what he will be looking for.
Voss was once a man who searched for answers because he wanted the truth. Now he searches because he is paid to. He will wish he had never asked.