When Manchester Yards donates a new training vessel to the Merchant Officer Academy at Port Newmar, Alys Giggone recalls the Chernyakova. She wants Ishmael Wang and his crew to take a crew of cadets into the Deep Dark. They have to sort out the crews of two ships, figure out what lessons they need to teach, and who will get those lessons. Once they agree, the trouble starts.

Autistic scientist Yasira Shien has developed a radical new energy drive that could change the future of humanity. But when she activates it, reality warps, destroying the space station and everyone aboard. The AI gods who rule the galaxy declare her work heretical, and Yasira is abducted by their agents. Instead of simply executing her, they offer mercy - if she'll help them hunt down a bigger target: her own mysterious, vanished mentor. With her homeworld's fate in the balance, Yasira must choose who to trust: the gods and their ruthless post-human angels, or a rebel scientist....

In 1986, physicist Timothy Straus hears voices that teach him how to create a space-warping engine that will change the world. In 2098, a fighter pilot hears voices that help him fight an authoritarian corporatist regime in the ashes of nuclear fallout. In 2155, the only self-aware robot on Mars struggles to steer humanity away from a demagogue who speaks from the shadows. Told through kaleidoscope storytelling across space and time, these three people are connected in ways they could never imagine.

When Van Tudor returns to his childhood home, he inherits more than the family farm. His grandfather used to tell him fantastic stories of spacemen and monsters, princesses and galactic knights. Little did Van realize, the old man's tales were more than fiction; they were real. Hidden beneath the old barn, Van’s legacy is waiting: a starship, not of this world. With his combat AI, an android bird named Perry, Van takes his first steps into the wider galaxy. He soon finds that space is far busier and more dangerous than he could have ever conceived.

Cori Catastrophe. They call me that sometimes, and I hate to admit it, but it isn’t wrong. Things go weird around me. Electronics die, things break, and if something odd happens, I seem to find it. Finding another dead body just made me late to work. Nothing will stop me from getting my degree, getting a job, and getting away from this tiny town - though leaving my best friend will hurt more than anything else. Reality seems determined to make reaching my goals impossible.