The Burning Dark

Captain Abraham Idaho Cleveland is a war hero whom his superiors would rather not see. He commanded the Fleet against a machine intelligence that devours planets, and he saved one of them. The price was a ruined knee and a reputation that embarrasses command.

His posting is Shadow, a station that circles a purple star at the far edge of Fleetspace. A handful of crew remain aboard, and their only task is to shut the place down and leave.

Cleveland assembles a radio from scavenged parts and picks up a woman's voice. It comes from no identifiable source, and the name she uses is one he knows. Meanwhile the station's Russian crewmember holds her own view of what lurks in the dark around a dying star. The decommissioning countdown keeps running regardless.

This is military science fiction told in the manner of a ghost story. The setting is an isolated outpost, the cast is a small crew who dislike one another, and the haunting resists every technological explanation. Expect a slow, claustrophobic mood in which the dread builds from quiet details rather than battles.