The Derand Protocol - Book 1

Charles Derand was just another ghost on Old Earth—forgotten, overlooked, nothing special. Until a cryptic message pulled him off the streets and threw him into the Guild’s brutal training program for Slip Ship navigators.

Now he’s flying with a neural implant wired to an AI that knows more than it should, piloting a prototype ship the Guild wants buried, and running from enemies no one will admit exist.

But the real twist? The girl he saved.

Cici isn’t human. She’s Shal’Vaari—one of a psionic avian race the Dominion hunted, caged, and turned into weapons. Young, gifted, and marked for death, she’s the key to something ancient… and something the galaxy is killing to keep buried.

What starts as survival becomes something else. A missing species. A dead civilization. A god-tier ship built by a race that shouldn’t exist. And at the center of it all—Charles, altered by alien tech, outgunned, outnumbered, and still not backing down.

The Dominion wants silence.
The Hegemony wants control.
Charles wants answers.

And he’s not asking twice.