Fractured Children of Earth

When a Deaf smuggler and her partner stumble upon a universe-wide conspiracy, getting humanity to understand the threat should be easier than achieving their dreams of having a child.

Mary and her co-captain Davi are ready to retire and start a family. While smuggling's been a profitable business, it's also been filled with risk and uncertainty. They're having trouble conceiving, though, so they have to keep going a little longer: The fertility procedures they need don't come cheap.

When a simple job inexplicably goes wrong, Mary gets shot and it throws their plans askew. But it's not because they won't get paid or even because the injury means more expensive treatments. It's because Mary's attackers are part of a fascist shadow government that's dangerously close to bringing humanity under its thumb... and Davi recognizes them from the abusive childhood he fled.

Mary and Davi want to warn humanity about what they've found, but their evidence is flimsy, they're out of money, and other smugglers are hesitant to risk arrest for such an outlandish story. If they can't convince anybody to help expose the plot and fight back, there might not be a free universe for anyone to live in-let alone for them to start the family they desperately desire.

For fans of the Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers, the Expanse series by James S. A. Corey, and the Andor television show.