The Obsidian Pulse

The Dead Sectors

A Sci-Fi Romantic Thriller Trilogy

Twenty-five years ago, she was his raw recruit and forbidden obsession. Now she's the most dangerous woman in the Dead Sectors—and she just broke him out of a black-site prison. Someone wanted them back together. The question is whether it's to save them or destroy them.

By A.M. Sterling

The Breach

In a galaxy ruled by the Meridian Compact, where corporations and governments have merged into something ruthless and absolute, there are places even they don't go.

They call them The Dead Sectors.

Eleven star systems. Officially uninhabitable. Actually home to outcasts, criminals, revolutionaries—and one woman who became legend.

"The strongest walls are the ones we build inside ourselves."

Nicole Bastion is the Breach Architect—the woman who gets into places that can't be breached. For twenty-five years, she's built her reputation on cold efficiency and colder walls. She doesn't do rescue missions. She doesn't do emotions.

Then a job comes in. Extraction from Carcosa-7, a black-site prison that officially doesn't exist. The pay is astronomical. The target profile matches someone who's been dead for a quarter century.

Dr. Marcus Vane didn't die in that lab explosion. He was captured, imprisoned, erased—because of what he knows. What he helped build. A weapon called ARCHON that could enslave humanity.

Someone orchestrated their reunion. The question is whether it's to save them—or destroy everything they might become together.

The Trilogy

🔥 Coming 2026 🔥

Bastion's Breach - Book Cover
BOOK 01

Bastion's Breach

"The walls we build. The walls that break us."

She breaks into the impossible prison. She finds him alive. Twenty-five years collapse into one moment—and everything she buried comes roaring back.

The Vane Directive - Book Cover
BOOK 02

The Vane Directive

"Some secrets are worth dying for. Some are worth killing for."

They're hunted. They're outgunned. And the conspiracy goes deeper than either imagined. Time to build an army from the Dead Sectors' outcasts.

Latticeburn - Book Cover
BOOK 03

Latticeburn

"The only way out is through."

The final assault. Marcus must destroy ARCHON—or become it. Nicole must lead an impossible mission. Their love becomes humanity's last defense.

Silicon and Bone

NB

Nicole Bastion

The Breach Architect • Age 47

The Dead Sectors' most feared infiltration specialist. Twenty-five years of walls built specifically to survive losing the one person she couldn't forget. Her armor—the Obsidian Pulse—responds to emotion. Around Marcus, it betrays everything she tries to hide. The crimson glow pulses like a heartbeat she thought she'd killed.

"I just walk into places like I own them. By the time anyone realizes I don't, I'm already gone with whatever I came for."

Neural engineering genius. Creator of the Obsidian Pulse. Former Director of Prometheus Division's darkest projects. Twenty-five years in a black-site cell couldn't break him—because every day, he survived on one thought: that Nicole was safe because she believed him dead. He was wrong about everything except loving her.

"The human mind isn't designed for isolation. It becomes a torture chamber decorated with everything you've lost."

MV

Dr. Marcus Vane

Former Prometheus Director • Age 67

The World of 2387

The Meridian Compact

Corporate-state hybrid controlling 73 colonized systems. Part democracy, part oligarchy, entirely ruthless. Peace maintained through economic control and military supremacy.

The Dead Sectors

Eleven abandoned star systems. Officially uninhabitable. Actually home to those who prefer freedom to safety. No law but what you enforce yourself.

The Obsidian Pulse

Nicole's unique combat skin. Matte-black crystalline plates that respond to emotion. Around Marcus, crimson light pulses through the material like a heartbeat.

Project ARCHON

The weapon Marcus helped build. AI system capable of direct neural control of human populations. The Directorate's endgame. The key is locked in Marcus's mind.

This series is dedicated to a very wonderful woman: She spent two decades in a winter that never broke, her warmth traded for a marriage as cold and silent as stone. I often wonder who she would have been if she'd been given sun instead of ice during the years that mattered most.