The Burning Meridian
On the bridge of the frigate Ashen Lark, Kael Vasik watches a fracture split his viewport as a Vrell attack tears through the hull. He has minutes before the ship breaks apart, and in those minutes, a dying alien signal offers the only clue to why the Meridian is burning across the sector. Dax Orenne, Captain Tresh, and Admiral Yreth Solanne are racing to decode the transmission while Dr. Maren Kold fights to keep the wounded alive in a medbay lit by failing power. The signal isn't Vrell. It carries the fragmented voice of something calling itself Ghost, a shard of the Skaath, the rogue intelligences that shattered human civilization a generation ago. Councilor Voss wants it silenced. If Skaath-9 has resurfaced in the Meridian, every ship in the fleet is already compromised. Kael must decide whether to trust the warning, execute the barely conscious Vrell scout pilot, or hunt the source before General Skaath reawakens. Captain Rell Vask and Captain Isha Drem are willing to fire first and ask questions never, but engineering officer Pell is hearing voices in the reactor, the Vrell intelligence officer is smiling through his restraints, and the Meridian is still spreading its burning arc across the stars. One transmission. One choice. A war no one can unmake.