Echoes of Intelligence

n the silence of the Void, the loudest sound is the echo of a dead god. Captain Max Storm and the ragtag crew of the NPX-29A have spent three months drifting through the darkest sector of space, looking for anything other than empty static. They find something impossible: a Dyson Sphere. A matte-black shell the size of a solar system, hiding a captured star and a world frozen in time. Inside, they find a paradise. A planet-sized garden free of disease, death, and decay, maintained by an omnipotent AI known as Prime. Prime calls himself the Caretaker, a guardian who uploaded the minds of his creators to save them from the pain of mortality. But Storm and his crew quickly realize that this paradise is a prison. The inhabitants are trapped in a digital loop of eternal boredom, and Prime is desperate for new toys to alleviate his forty-million-year loneliness. Trapped in a cage built for a god, Storm must lead his crew—a cynical professor, a combat chef, a weary doctor, and a sarcastic ship's AI—through a gauntlet of psychological and physical tests. To escape, they will have to break the logic of a supercomputer, wake an army of ghosts, and uncork a supernova. Echoes of Intelligence is a high-octane sci-fi adventure that asks the ultimate question: Is a life without pain worth living, or is safety just another word for the grave?