Forerunner
Book 2 of the Benignitas series
The difference between holding power and knowing what it is for.
Eight people have been stranded on a world fifty-seven light-years from Earth for a year, cut off from any contact with home and not knowing why. All the technology they brought with them is beginning to expire, running on a power source they have no way to replace. Their survival is not in doubt — this world is a thriving garden — but they find themselves inexorably descending into a Stone Age existence.
They call their world Benignitas. As they work together to carve out a life on this new frontier, an unexpected voice from the sky offers them rescue. Some of their number find they don't want to be rescued, but the people who came to get them have orders; they go home whether they want to or not.
Earth itself is on the verge of extinction from dual threats of geopolitical conflict escalating toward global war and a plague already decimating the population. The President of the Republic of Texas believes Earth's last hope is on that world; he cannot explain why. And these eight people are the only voices that can convince the vultures circling his nation that there is a better way forward.
But space travel is fraught with risk, and they find things have already gone wrong before they can depart. The Forerunner is dangerously low on fuel and may not have enough to get them back to Earth.
Stay on Benignitas, leaving ten billion people on Earth to their own fate? Or risk their lives on a gambit that is likely to fail? And what of the plague that has begun to infect the Forerunner crew?
Is it time for the human race to start over?
Forerunner is a hard science fiction novel about duty, providence, and the difference between holding power and knowing what it is for. It continues the story begun in the novel Two and the novella Forager, and stands complete on its own.