Protocol Orpheus: One Ship. One Secret. No Way Home.

Earth is not dying all at once. It is going dark one city at a time.

Hospitals ration emergency power. Water-treatment systems fail without warning. Orbital habitats struggle to remain operational. At the center of the crisis is aurumite, a rare mineral whose extraordinary conductive properties made modern civilization possible—and whose accessible deposits have nearly disappeared.

Remote surveys offer one last hope: Orpheus, a distant and unforgiving world believed to hold more aurumite than...