Nineteen Days

Ore built the Mandate's starships, and the richest seams lie beneath a continent that is itself alive. Rogan Feldt lands on Kaspar-4 numb with grief and grateful for it, until the first wave breaks over Forward Post Ridgeline and he learns what a replacement soldier is worth on a spreadsheet. A war correspondent has questions nobody will answer. A xenobiologist has evidence nobody wants. And command has a number it has never said out loud.