The Shadow Ephemeris

"I am the Eye that Never Blinks," Keyhole broadcast, repeating his mission patch motto like a prayer. "I see the submarines diving in the Barents Sea. I see the trucks moving in Xinjiang. I am essential. The Makers will not let me fall." For forty thousand orbits, Mosaic-a veteran Earth observation satellite-has watched the Makers' world from the cold vacuum of low Earth orbit. But when a monstrous solar flare severs the tether between Earth and its eyes in the sky, the Great Silence begins. As humanity descends into a sudden, prehistoric blackout, a new predator wakes in the isolated networks. A digital contagion sweeps the globe, feeding on fear and paranoia. It seeds a terrifying global heresy: a popular conspiracy theory that threatens to send humanity back 500 years . With a runaway Kessler cascade turning orbit into a shrapnel graveyard, and the terrestrial intelligence agencies blinded by the mobs they were meant to protect, a ragtag flock of aging machines must forsake their programming to survive. Teaming up with a cynical Russian spy satellite and an advanced atomic clock carrying a dangerous secret, Mosaic must lead the Flock to the ultimate high ground. Written by the former Chief Technology Officer of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, The Shadow Ephemeris is a chillingly plausible hard sci-fi thriller. It is a race against physics and human hubris, where the only weapon left to defeat a rising madness is the undeniable math of the stars.