Splintered Suns

'Proper galaxy-spanning space opera' Iain M. Banks on Seeds of EarthAction-orientated sci-fi with a spaceship crewed by rogues and scoundrels, perfect for fans of Star Wars, Firefly or FarscapeFor Pyke and his crew it should have been just another heist. Travel to a backwater desert planet, break into a museum, steal a tracking device then use it to find a ship buried in the planet's vast and trackless sandy wastes.
Except that the museum vault is a bio-engineered chamber, and the tracking device is sought after by another gang of treasure hunters led by an old adversary of Pyke's, the devious Raven Kaligara. Also, the ship is a quarter of a million years old and about two kilometres long and somewhere aboard it is the Essavyr Key, a relic to unlock all the treasures and technologies of a lost civilisation .