The mission was a lie. The pilot was a replacement. Survival was a flaw in the plan.Captain Teryn Branner was a key, precision-engineered for a lock that shouldn't exist. His unique mind, a fortress of cold logic, made him the only pilot in the galaxy capable of flying a living ship into a black hole and returning. He was told he was a pioneer, a hero writing the first line of a new chapter in human history.But when he crossed the event horizon, he found the chapter had already been written, then ripped out. The universe on the other side wasn't empty. It held a ghost: Kaelen Kriss, the first pilot for his program, a woman who was supposed to have died a decade ago.Teryn wasn't a pioneer. He was a cover-up.Now, stranded in a reality that defies physics, they're not just survivors; they're anomalies. The Moiré Rift didn't just hide them; it changed them. And the man who sent them both to die knows they're alive. He sees their impossible return not as a miracle, but as an unsanctioned system upgrade he is determined to reclaim.Hunted by a commander who will burn worlds to possess the secrets only they know, Teryn and Kaelen must master abilities they don't understand to outwit an enemy who built the very system they once served. But in a universe that doesn't follow the same set of rules, who can you trust when the only other person for light-years is the ghost you were sent to replace?