Zero-day Contact

An interstellar enigma crashes. A global network fails. The world points fingers.

When an elusive object from Alpha Centauri streaks toward Earth, defying detection, it promises discovery. For Starlink security analyst Zach Reed and astrophysicist Caleb Wright, it's the find of a lifetime-until it survives atmospheric entry and slams into the remote Pacific Northwest. Their scientific triumph turns to terror as military forces swarm the impact site, transforming it into a fortress overnight. Zach and Caleb barely escape the lockdown, haunted by the impossible artifact they witnessed and a mysterious injury Caleb sustained in the chaos. The official silence that follows is deafening, erasing the event as if it never happened.

A cosmic secret buried. A forced retreat. The blame game begins.

Morning dawns not with answers, but with chaos. Sophisticated cyberattacks claw through global infrastructure-power grids fail, communication networks collapse, financial markets hemorrhage. Nations accuse shadowy state actors, conspiracy theories ignite, and the world scrambles for an enemy as the digital plague spreads with terrifying acuity. For Zach, hunted by authorities demanding silence about the crash, the timing feels chillingly coincidental. Is there a connection? Or is he caught between two unrelated catastrophes?

Survival becomes the only mission. Caleb, grappling with disturbing visions and a strange transformation seeks help and then vanishes-extracted by a clandestine black-ops unit determined to contain whatever he knows. Zach, marked for arrest, finds himself pursued by Chief Master Sergeant Malachi "Midnight" Black and his United States Space Force special unit, Sigma-9-an elite force tasked with burying the truth of the impact site at any cost.

Thrust together by desperation, an unlikely team of misfits form around Zach:

• Jules, his high school confidante, a freckled firebrand.

• Miccah, a GNN journalist whose pursuit of the explosive truth plunges her into the heart of the conspiracy-her only shield the story that could save or silence her forever.

• Orion, a reclusive hacker whose digital fortress might be their only refuge-or their most dangerous gamble.

• A mysterious foreign operative, pursuing her own hidden agenda amidst the chaos, whose lethal skills might be their salvation-or their final betrayal.

They race against the clock and unseen enemies, trying to unravel the truth behind the crash, find their missing friends, and understand the nature of the force crippling the planet. Is the interstellar anomaly merely a government secret the US seeks to protect? Are the cyberattacks the work of a rival nation exploiting the chaos? Or has something truly alien landed, its arrival masked by a world too busy tearing itself apart?

Every answer leads to deadlier questions as the enemy-whoever, or whatever, it is-adapts, counters, and escalates. Humanity hurtles towards war, driven by fear and suspicion. Zach and his crew must navigate this treacherous landscape while confronting the chilling possibility that the true enemy manipulating the chaos-and the only path to salvation-lies hidden, obscured by devastatingly effective misdirection.