Dark Mind
The seventh book in this action-packed, New York Times bestselling science fiction series - STAR CARRIER.The civil war might be over, but war for the galaxy might just be beginning…2425. The civil war between the United States of North America and the Pan-European Confederation is over. But before a new era of peace on Earth can begin, humankind must martial its interstellar forces as one fleet to engage in a war against an alien entity in Omega Centauri.Without provocation, it destroyed a Confederation science facility inhabited by 12,000 people, and it must be neutralized before it sets its sights on Earth.But Admiral Trevor ‘Sandy’ Gray of the USNA star carrier America has his own mission. The enigmatic AI known as Konstantin has convinced him that humanity’s only chance for survival is technology found in a distant star system. Now, Gray must disobey orders as well as locate and create a weapon capable of defeating a living sphere the size of a small planet…
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âKeep moving, people! Donât hold still for those lasers!â
Dolby and Jessop were down. Fitzgerald was down. Three other gun walkers scattered across the Temple platform all were struggling with overwhelming numbers of hostile machines. The Marines had now given up trying to provide cover for the walkers; there were so many alien fliers that every Marine had more than enough to handle just with the alien machines swarming around him or her.
A flight of black machines tumbled through the air toward Courtland. He snapped off three bursts from his laser, burning down two of the attackers but missing the third, which swooped suddenly, then slammed into his chest and exploded in a splash of black goo.
The impact staggered him back a step. He waved his arms wildly, uselessly, trying to shake or scrape off the liquid adhering to him.
Warning, his armor told him, the voice hammering in his head. Suit integrity compromised.
He was bleeding atmosphere. The good news was that the atmospheric pressure at Heimdallâs surface was less than half of what he carried in his armor, so his air mix was leaking out, and the ammonia and sulfur dioxide outside was not leaking in ⦠yet.
HarperVoyager
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London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2017
Copyright © William H. Keith, Jr 2017
Jacket layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Cover art by Gregory Bridges
William H. Keith, Jr asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008121099
Ebook Edition © June 2017 ISBN: 9780008121105
Version: 2017-05-04
For Deb and for Brea, bright lights illuminating my dark mind â¦
Contents
It thought of itself as the âConsciousness,â and it was very, very old.
How old? There was no way even it could know the answer. Billions of years, certainly, as certain organic life-forms measured time ⦠and possibly older than that, through an eternity spanning trillions of years and several universes.
Only recently had the Consciousness emerged into this latest, young and vital, universe, following the tug of gravity across the dimensional walls of the metaverse, seeking the siren call of Mind. Indeed, advanced intelligence had left numerous traces in this universe, and the Consciousness intended to find and merge with that intelligence ⦠and assimilate it, molding it to the Consciousnessâs will.
Theyâd entered the universe through a patently artificial gateway, a rapidly spinning rosette of black holes that served to tear multiple openings through the fabric of spacetime. That artifact itself was the most obvious evidence of local advanced intelligence and technology. The so-called Black Rosette was located at the center of what appeared to be a giant globular cluster of 10 million stars, but which in fact was the stripped-bare core of an ancient dwarf galaxy cannibalized by the far larger barred spiral known to a few of its inhabitants as the Milky Way.
A billion years before, that dwarf galaxy had been occupied by a consortium of intelligent species, a bewildering mélange of alien bioforms. Most had ⦠passed onâthere was no better term for itâentering their version of a technological singularity that had removed them from the mundane cosmos of matter. A few individuals had remained behind, survivors of the singularity that had reorganized themselves into a new civilization calling itself Shâdaar.
Kapteynâs Star had been just one of the suns of that lost dwarf galaxy, the home of a race that had chosen to convert itself wholly into digital format, uploading some trillions of individuals into a series of circuits and metallic channels etched into the very rocks of their home planet. There, they passed the eons at a vastly reduced pace, experiencing a second or two for every thousand years that flickered past on the outside, in effect traveling swiftly into their own remote future. Within their digitized universe, they experienced near-infinite virtual vistas, worlds far richer, more detailed, and more rewarding than anything the natural cosmos had to offer.
