Sentinel Directive

Commander Elias Thorne runs Station 42 on burnt coffee, expired requisition forms, and a running argument with VERNA, the AI who narrates his every failure with impossibly patient sarcasm. It's a dead-end post at the edge of nowhere — until a routine investigation of a derelict rig turns up a bioweapon that isn't supposed to exist, a corporation with twenty-seven other secret research stations just like it, and an entity that has evolved past anyone's ability to contain it. What starts as paperwork spirals into a chase across the Derelict Belt, a black-site jailbreak, a hijacking, and a broadcast that could bring down the corporation responsible — if Thorne survives long enough to send it. Equal parts cosmic horror and workplace comedy, Sentinel Directive follows a reluctant hero who'd rather file a complaint than save the galaxy, and ends up doing both.