Tempus Interruptus (Dwarves in Space, #1)

Time's unraveling across the galaxy and the only hope are two people who'd rather kill each other than work together.
Drake Bane is a low-class smuggler and general grit in the galaxy's wheels of progress. He finds himself on the wrong side of a goblin mob boss and gets the choice to either steal an ancient relic or test space decompression up close. When his ship's impounded as collateral he's left to sneak his way onto a ship without bothering to get to know the captain or its cast of interesting characters. Too bad or he'd have skipped right past and saved himself a major headache.
Captain Variel Tuffman's got her own secrets which she's not about to share with a smuggler that lied his way onto her ship. All she wants is to ditch the guy before the couple on her ship who think they're on a cruise vacation catch on. It all goes wibbly wobbly when an ancient artifact impales itself onto her hand and she can't get it off. The crew is sent careening across the galaxy on the run from a bunch of species' militaries and the dwarven antiquities board. At the heart of it all is a hole in the galaxy that no one's ever seen before or can explain and it's getting bigger. When the captain starts speaking gibberish and snaps in and out of comas, their only hope may be the relic jammed in her hand.

S. E. Zbasnik has a degree in genetics, which means there may or may not be a horde of monkeoctopi doing her bidding to take over the world. She recently won the Top Ten Handmaid's Challenge on Wattpad where hers was chosen by Margaret Atwood herself. Along with her husband and black lab, she spends a lot of time with her skeletons -- don't worry, they're only Halloween props.