Where the God-Knives Tread
Novelette 16,000 words Recommended by 4 award/anthology sources
"When the ship’s scanners first chirped in the dead of night, Sien figured it was another misfire: light reflecting off asteroid ice, solar radiation, space dust. But xe still slid from xir berth into the chilly, cramped cockpit, eyes bleary as xe ran the numbers again. And this was no misfire."
Content warnings 3
body-horrordeathviolence
Quasar links out; the story lives on Lightspeed, where the author gets the click.