Beyond Phobos

Facing unprecedented challenges to feed a colony on Mars and confront a rising need for underground crops, Dr. Lirren Lamaar takes things into her own hands again on a fateful trip back to Earth to access the Svalbard Seed Vault on a remote Norwegian arctic archipelago. For the dangerous mission she hires a Hungarian ship called the Peregrinus Interstellar, rumored to have a past in illicit cargo smuggling. Lirren's efforts begin to unravel however, in a violent, multi-layered plot after the ship crashes a few miles off course on a glacier known as Spitsbergen, and the crew is entangled by its past with the neighboring Russians. Caught in the depths of winter, and stuck on the ice, Lirren uses an ice sailor named Zero to reach nearby Longyearbyen to access Heirloom seeds she hopes will provide the answer for Mars. But with a Russian Special-Ops team closing in fast, and Norwegian special forces stepping in, Lirren is plunged into more suspense than she bargained for as they close in on the crashed ship in the interest of national security. It's not long before she understands the captain of the Interstellar secretly possesses a powerful new invention making her mission even more unpredictable. As the situation spins dangerously out of control, Lirren must use every ounce of courage she has to face an impending storm and reach the Interstellar in time. With unexpected alliances including a police detective in Svalbard, she hires a dog sled team to get back, stopping at an old schooner turned hotel named the Noorderlicht, where men, dogs and drones battle over a past and a future locked in ice and snow.