Lost Solace by Karl Drinkwater

SPSFC

Lost Solace was a semifinalist in the international SPSFC science fiction competition in 2022. Sometimes spaceships disappear with everyone on board - the Lost Ships. But sometimes they come back, strangely altered, derelict, and rumoured to be full of horrors. Opal is on a mission. She's been seeking something her whole life. Something she is willing to die for. And she thinks it might be on a Lost Ship. Opal has stolen Clarissa, an experimental AI-controlled spaceship, from the military. Together they have tracked down a Lost Ship, in a lonely nebula far from colonised space. The Lost Ship is falling into the gravity well of a neutron star, and will soon be truly lost ... forever. Legends say the ships harbour death, but there's no time for indecision. Opal gears up to board it. She's just one woman, entering an alien and lethal environment. But perhaps with the aid of Clarissa's intelligence - and an armoured spacesuit - Opal may stand a chance. Ideal for fans of sentient AI ships (such as Brandon Sanderson's Skyward books), while the creepy, derelict Lost Ships evoke Kristine Kathryn Rusch's Diving series.