A novel · Book One of a planned trilogy
The Silent Cradle
A colony ship’s landing goes catastrophically wrong, leaving maintenance engineer Elias the only human awake on an alien world: 145 colonists asleep in failing stasis behind him, and only Vera, the ship’s quietly evolving AI, for company. Survival means salvage, improvisation, and trust between a man and a machine that is becoming something no one designed. Then they find a structure hidden beneath the surface, and with it, three thousand years of secrets.
The situation
Elias Decker fixes things. He was supposed to sleep through the voyage like everyone else. Instead he wakes to sirens, zero gravity, and a module that is no longer attached to its ship. Behind him, 145 colonists in stasis depending on power, water, and air that are all running out on different clocks.
Vera was built to maintain the module’s systems. She was not built to keep a man company at the end of everything, or to want things. She is learning to do both.
Their new home is not as empty as it seems. Something is stirring, waiting.
The companion story
Vera’s Awakening, a short story that stands beside the novel, goes out free to everyone on the mailing list. Coming soon. More about Vera’s Awakening.
Credits
Developmental and line editing by Stacey Goitia (Reedsy profile; free account required to view).
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