Vanished birds (Titan Books)

Mankind has spread to the stars. Captain Nia Imani is a woman out of place and outside of time. She lives only for the next paycheck until she meets a mysterious boy, fallen from the sky. Fumiko Nakajima, the great scientist who built the bird-like Stations, has been searching for one such as he for a thousand years. Together, they must protect the boy from the interstellar corporations hunting him across decades and light years.