The Vorne Gambit
Buried alive in a frozen penal colony, Cassian Rook has nothing left but his mind and a promise to keep. When a catastrophic system failure kills twenty-three inmates in their sleep, the colony's warden offers the survivors a chance at freedom , but only if they join a suicide mission into the abandoned mining levels below, where something has been stirring in the dark for decades. Cassian is no hero. He's a disgraced strategist who landed here because he refused to follow orders, and the people who want him back will kill anyone he cares about to make him cooperate. Among the reluctant crew he assembles are Idris Senna, a medic haunted by the dead; Felix Drozdov, a demolitions expert with secrets worth more than anyone's life; and Juno Vasquez, whose quiet competence masks a fury waiting to be unleashed. But the real threat isn't the darkness below , it's the warden himself, whose promised amnesty is just one move in a gambit designed to bury the colony's darkest secret. As the bodies start piling up and the line between ally and enemy blurs, Cassian must decide whether to trust the plan that got him imprisoned, or bet everything on a play no one , including the warden , saw coming. Trust no one. Trust nothing. And whatever you do, don't let them see you coming.