Protostar: An Automatic Apocalypse by Jesse Pohlman

WriteHive Book Club

Lahira Ocean is the Captain of the Messenger, a cutting-edge Cruiser defending Humanity and its allies against an alien race called The Orphans. After a hectic battle at the planet Gagarin, Lahira awakens from a two-week long coma to find two strangers carefully awaiting her recovery. The first is clearly from the upper echelons of Earth's government who calls himself Herodotus Fork; the second is distantly familiar to Lahira as a woman named Amber, an ambassador from the Automatons, a 'species' of alien who are fully artificial intelligences. Neither are happy to be sitting over her hospital bed. Lahira is suspected of being involved in an unprecedented attack on an Automaton: During the Battle of Gagarin, Lahira's ship emitted a strange signal which seemed to corrupt the mind of an elder Automaton, and Amber has been assigned to levy judgment about what happened. Unfortunately for her, the chaos of the ensuing melee led to the Human receiving serious injuries: She was mentally connected to a computer system which shorted out. These injuries - along with others lurking deeper under the surface of her thoughts - have induced retrograde amnesia, meaning she cannot fully explain the events leading to her role in the brawl.

Adult • Science Fiction/Cyberpunk and Biopunk • Science Fiction/Exploration • Science Fiction/Military SF

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