A missing jump shipA desperate searchA future‑bending discoveryFrom bestselling author D. Ward Cornell comes a new adventure about duty, danger, and the thin line between exploration and catastrophe. Captain Noah Fletcher and the Dauntless are recalled from Kepler‑22 with a single find Impulse, the Alliance’s first jump‑capable vessel, lost without explanation after its ninth Spark-drive transition. Fletcher has thirty days to locate her. Thirty days before the stranded crew runs out of food. Thirty days before the Alliance must accept the unthinkable. But Impulse could be anywhere. And Fletcher isn’t the only one searching. If Earth’s enemies reach the ship first, they’ll gain access to the Spark drive — a technology powerful enough to shift the balance of power in the galaxy. The Alliance would not survive the fallout. The search begins with clean telemetry, a clear trail, and a crew determined to bring their people home. But as Dauntless follows the fading energy signature deeper into uncharted space, the mission twists into something stranger than any of them imagined. Debris fields that shouldn’t exist. Signals that defy physics. A pattern of anomalies that suggests Impulse didn’t simply vanish. It changed something. Or something changed it. And when Fletcher finally closes in on the truth, he discovers a threat far greater than a missing ship.
Some doors should never be opened. The Spark-drive opened them anyway.
D. Ward Cornell lives on the Kohala Coast of the Big Island of Hawaii. His career as an engineer, consultant, and entrepreneur has taken him all over the world. Many of those places and elements of those cultures are featured in his writing.
Although still dabbling in those fields, his passion now is bring stories to life.
Complex, fascinating, that it could really go like this in our future. Complicated cast of characters, as real people would be. Intense at times and casual as life can be. Enough mystery to keep you glued to the story.