The Mandate's Shadow

A Novel of the United Stellar Concord

Midshipman Ana Morales is a fraud from the ankles down. Aboard the starship USC Vanguard, the first sound she makes is a lie—the soft scuff of an athletic trainer where the declarative thump of a command-division boot should be. As a member of the elite “Striders” squadron, she was trained to devour distance, but a casualty of misplaced luggage has stolen her certainty, leaving her feeling like an imposter in a world of rigid rules and unwavering confidence.

Her new, impossible assignment only deepens the feeling: she is to be the personal cadet to the ship’s enigmatic and formidable captain, Elena Vidal. But the Vanguard’s mission is not the simple relief operation the crew believes. It's a covert investigation, a hunt for a ghost in the ship’s telemetry—an echo from a dark chapter in the Concord's history involving the legendary vessel Indomitable and its disgraced captain.

For Ana, a runner whose art is in the relentless, measured consumption of time and space, the ship’s secrets begin to unravel like a dropped stitch in a perfect weave. She soon discovers that the official story is a lie, and Captain Vidal is steering them into the heart of a conspiracy that could shatter the sacred Prime Observation Mandate itself. On a ship where the law is scripture, Ana must learn to navigate the treacherous terrain where the map ends and the truth begins, in a race where the finish line could mean the salvation of a world, or the damnation of them all.