Ashes of the Meridian
Salvage runner Maren Vasik has spent years keeping her family name at arm's length, ever since her brother Ezra vanished into the orbit wars and the Vasik bloodline became something commanders whispered about. When she hauls a black cylinder from the bones of a shattered orbital platform above the indigo world of Veridian, the relic doesn't stay silent. It speaks. It commands. And it recognizes her. Captain Vael Khoury's mercenary crew offers protection, but every favor comes tethered to Khoury's own hunt for the Meridian, an ancient network the Oathkeeper AI is fighting to keep buried. Admiral Caelan Voss's flag fleet is closing in, willing to glass entire debris fields to secure the secret Maren is now carrying. Joined by whistleblower Senna Roe, ace pilot Iko Vance, and the scarred veteran Gershom Doyle, Maren is forced to confront the legacy she's been running from. Each transmission from the relic brings her closer to what Ezra knew, and what he died to hide. As the fleet tightens its noose and the Oathkeeper begins rewriting Maren's neural architecture, she faces an impossible choice: surrender the Meridian and save the crew she's come to trust, or unleash its power and become the weapon her bloodline was always meant to be.