Alaska Protocol

The galaxy has no room for humanity. The Kentrax intend to prove it-and they'll burn every human world to the ground to make their point.Commander Ragnar Chamberlain has spent his entire past running from his father's disgrace a failure that left the USS Montana a wreck and left him with nothing but questions. Command of the USS Alaska is his chance to set that right. A chance to prove he's not the man his father was. A chance to earn the trust of a crew that doubts him, his own blood pounding in his ears every time he steps onto the bridge.Then the shakedown cruise becomes a desperate fight for survival.The Kentrax arrive without warning. Their ships are alive. Their language is vibration. Their verdict on Earth and every child who calls it home is simple: contamination. Nothing left but to burn it clean. To them, humanity's existence is a wound that must be cauterized.Now the Alaska drifts crippled at the edge of hostile space. Something is growing on the zero-point core a bioluminescent fungus pulsing in time with the reactor. Feeding. Spreading. Twelve crew members are trapped on the deck below the infection, and every option Ragnar has left is an impossible one. His tiny ship is already torn apart from the first attack. A complete recovery isn't just unlikely. It's a fantasy. This starship, this crew, this war all of it rests on a decision no commander should have to make alone.This is the calculus of mercy. The math his father failed. The last variable Ragnar never solved.In the cold silence of a dying ship, he must make the discovery his father never could: survival doesn't mean never making the wrong call. It means living with the one you made