Iron Between Stars

For fourteen months at a bolted-down console on the edge of Kaliher, Cassian Vael has listened to a flatline of snow from a dead channel , and refused to log it as lost. When the silence finally speaks, the signal drags an admiral's fleet out of high orbit, pulls a courier off her run, and drags a smuggler out of hiding with cargo that should not exist. Dr. Iskar Vale, recalled from disgrace, arrives on the same shuttle as a recorded warning from a woman already dead. Somewhere above them, The Crown is watching , and has already chosen which of them to leave behind. As rival factions close on the source of the broadcast, Cassian discovers the message was never meant for him at all. It is a key, a lure, or a confession , and decoding it will cost him the only home he has left. With the listening post scheduled for decommission and Admiral Gaerath's ships in pursuit, he has hours to decide whether to transmit, destroy, or follow the signal into the dark between the stars. Whatever he chooses, the channel will not stay silent again.