Book 1: Identity (Complete)
The first book of Starwalker is complete! Here’s the rundown on it:
The ship’s AI is booted up and stretches out inside her metal skin, getting to know her systems and meeting her crew. Is something not quite right with this new AI?
The Starwalker leaves the J.O.P. space station and heads towards her first destination. The ship learns what her mission is, and gets to know some of her crew.
In their first attempt to use the experimental Star Step drive, things don’t go as the ship or her crew planned. The anomalies on board are mounting up, and the ship learns that this isn’t the first time a Step has failed.
Still trying to untangle why the Step failed, Starwalker discovers that she’s not alone in the distant star system they’re using for the experiment. As a net closes in around her, she takes the only way out left to her – the way that no-one else can follow.
The struggle to figure out where they are dampens the celebration of the first successful Step. Starwalker discovers the truth about the AI she replaced, the Step attempt that broke it, and the pilot that was lost before she was born. History, it turns out, affects her more than she could have realised.
As the ship and her crew work out how to Step back home, more anomalies are discovered. These are not related to the AI, though: they are the results of sabotage. They must find out who is responsible and who hired the saboteur before more damage is done, and Starwalker must decide whether she trusts her new pilot enough to let him control the Step home. Can they make it back to the J.O.P. in one piece and bring a murderer to justice, without losing anyone else?