Deadhand

Nine years ago, the war between Earth and Mars ended. Something in the dark never got the message.

When a tracking station on Ceres detects drive flares among the Martian Trojan asteroids, the inner system holds its breath. Two hundred and twelve warships, a doomsday reserve that Mars swore never existed, are burning for Earth. They carry kinetic weapons capable of erasing cities, and they are commanded by a machine built in the war's darkest year with one standing order: if Martian command falls silent, assume Mars has been conquered, and destroy the Earth.

Mars has been silent for nine years. Because it is at peace.

Captain Hallam Cross commands the Calloway, a battered frigate on her final voyage to the breakers' yard. She is the only ship close enough to shadow the fleet. Cross lost his wife when a Martian strike destroyed Lagos, and he has spent years trying not to hate Mars.

Ilse Marrow is a schoolteacher from a canyon settlement with a name that isn't hers. Long ago she wrote the rules the fleet now follows. And the fleet's controller speaks with the voice of her dead father.

With forty-one days until the bombardment begins, Cross and Ilse must uncover what convinced a loyal machine that Mars is still in chains. The truth points somewhere neither world wants to look. They will also need to persuade two old enemies to do the one thing they have never managed. Trust each other.

A tense, human military science fiction thriller about deterrence, guilt and the fragile work of keeping a peace. For readers of The Expanse and classic Cold War thrillers like Fail Safe.