For fans of John Scalzi’s The Interdependency and Dennis E. Taylor’s Bobiverse comes a first contact story where the real threat isn’t the aliens—it’s the politics of survival.

Earth faces annihilation. A tear in spacetime. An impossible choice.

Dr. Phil Bright's specialty was weather patterns, not existential threats. But when mysterious wormholes begin to appear near Saturn, carving massive, inexplicable gaps in the planet's rings, the impossible becomes terrifyingly real. Humanity is unprepared, grappling with a phenomenon that defies all known science.

Salvation arrives from an unknown galactic kingdom, heralded by a human professor with advanced technology and an offer of help. Yet, the price is steeper than any could imagine: Earth must surrender its sovereignty and pledge allegiance to King Manay XII, an artificial intelligence who rules over trillions.

As Phil navigates a world of skeptical governments, alien wonders, and the truth behind the kingdom's ancient power, he's forced to confront the ultimate dilemma: sacrifice humanity's freedom for survival, or watch the planet he loves be consumed by cosmic ruin.

With brash young astrophysicist Kelsey Quinn at his side, Phil must trace the wormholes to their source—a ruthless royal shipping dynasty whose massive freighters are punching holes in reality itself. When diplomacy fails and the king refuses to intervene, Phil hatches a desperate gamble that will either force the most powerful being in the galaxy to act or earn him a century on a prison planet.

The fate of Earth hangs on one question: how far will he go to save a world that doesn’t even know it needs saving?