The Cryo-Warden's Charge
A Science Fiction Romance

About this book:

Three hundred years. Ten thousand sleeping colonists. One woman awake to keep the dark still.

Mara Vance signed on as the *Meridian*'s sole Cryo-Warden for the centuries-long haul to Tau Ceti, trading Earth for a generous pension and a quiet life monitoring vitals that never change. She knows every rattle of the ship's B-flat hum, every frost-rimed pod in the four cryo-bays, every workaround for the aging Mark-IV units in Bay Four. Then Pod 409—Julian Reyes, hydrologist, thirty-one, a scar on his cheekbone and no family waiting back home—throws a thermal anomaly at precisely 04:00 ship time. Twelve seconds. Four-tenths of a degree. Impossible in deep stasis. And it keeps happening.

With 295 years of voyage left and an AI that follows decision trees instead of instincts, Mara faces a choice the mission planners never anticipated: follow protocol and report a glitch, or break every rule to reach the man dreaming behind the glass. Because the anomaly isn't a malfunction. It's a signal. And the only thing lonelier than the long watch is realizing you're no longer the only one awake in the dark.