Meet Corporal Kendal Harris: chef, IT tech, and budding con artist. It’s an easy gig, hiding in the cargo hold of a survey ship, easier still to run from your past. But at only fifteen, Kendal can’t run forever, and the survey ship he has stowed away on is turning out to be a one-way trip.Bex is the last of a dying breed. A trained Tender, it’s Bex’s job to raise, foster, and introduce virgin species into her world’s ecosystem. Not an easy task. Between rampant poaching, predation, and the inevitable Great Sleep, her world is nearing the end of its sustainability. Resources have dwindled to desperate levels on her world, leaving many to harvest what they can to survive, even each other.But when a strange new species emerges in Bex’s life, she must decide whether its life is worth saving, or if its body is worth salvaging.This first installment of the Patcher series is a novella length work, roughly 48,000 words.