Codex Nihilo: Smuggler's Gambit

They survived their first suicide mission. The reward is a one-way ticket to Mars.

Project Icepack—the Accord's most disposable black-ops team—is back off the ice and pointed at a new target: a charismatic smuggler trafficking enough black-market anti-matter to turn the Red Planet into a sheet of glass.

The job seems simple: infiltrate, neutralize, and try not to start an interplanetary incident before breakfast. Their handler, Quill, is watching closer than ever, her voice a ghost in their ears, her motives a black box.

But on Mars, nothing is as advertised. The "smugglers" aren't criminals; they're disgraced scientists. The anti-matter isn't for sale; it's for a project that could shatter the foundations of the Accord. And the cargo they're truly after is a fragment of the one thing the regime fears most: a forbidden history known as the Codex Nihilo.

Caught between their manipulative handler and a truth that could get them erased for good, Dex Quillon and his dysfunctional crew must make a choice: follow orders and remain the Accord's loyal pawns, or bet it all on a dangerous new alliance.

In a place built on secrets, the truth is the deadliest contraband of all. And this time, getting caught won't just mean a trip back to the freezer.

It means learning you were never meant to thaw in the first place.