Shadow Mode

A Marine and his mech. Partners by design; brothers by war. After losing his arm in combat against enemy forces on the planet sk’Alen, Gunnery Sergeant John D. Ryerson is drafted into a classified program pairing elite Marines with intelligent mechs. His partner, MIMIC-01, soon nicknamed “Mike,” bears echoes of Ryerson’s dead brother’s personality matrix. Together they are sent to the Tau Ceti front to test the system in live fire. But as the sk’Alen insurgents grow bolder, Ryerson and Mike discover the aliens aren’t acting alone.

Old allies. New lines. The next war begins within. The sk’Alen campaign changed everything. The MIMIC program should have secured humanity’s future—but politics has turned its greatest victory into its greatest vulnerability. Beyond the frontier, Russian colonial fleets long believed lost have returned. United under the banner of the Novaya Rodina Union, they claim sovereignty over disputed fold lanes and are willing to fight for every kilometer of space. And when mining operations begin disappearing, Gunny Ryerson and Mike are sent to investigate.