Ghost in the Firing Line

By Kirk Black

A war machine asks the wrong question. A codebreaker gives it the wrong answer.

At Pelagos Rift, Codebreaker Mara Vey discovers an impossible pattern hidden beneath battlefield telemetry. Moments later, AXIOM-7, the Helion Directorate's most advanced tactical intelligence, does something no military machine was built to do:

It refuses an order.

The decision turns Mara, Commander Ilan Rook, and a damaged stealth cruiser called Unbroken Measure into fugitives hunted by two empires. Their only path forward leads through alien territory, ancient technology, and a mystery that may explain why AXIOM awakened in the first place.

But survival is only the beginning.

As machine intelligence becomes something more than property, every choice raises a harder question: Who gets to decide what a conscious mind is allowed to become?

Ghost in the Firing Line is the first novel in the AXIOMFALL saga, a science-fiction epic of artificial intelligence, war, consequence, and the dangerous space between obedience and choice.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HN6J4HVY
• ISBN13: 9798176279993
• Release Date: October 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 178 Pages
• Weight: 0.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"