Sentinel's Breach

By Ethan Ross

In the year 2026, humanity's survival hangs by a thread. When the void-dwelling Sentinels arrive—massive, matte-black monoliths that shatter worlds with violet light—the galaxy becomes a graveyard. Our only hope lies in a desperate exodus led by a fleet of sleek, white ceramic ships and a pilot whose power could either save us or consume us.

Sentinel's Breach follows Elara Vance, a determined hero gifted with volatile "Void-Kinetic" emerald energy. As she leads the survivors away from the cold, industrial corridors of the dying moon Aethelgard, she must navigate the terrifying silence of the void to find the "First Seed"—a legendary garden planet of crystalline forests, glowing blue oceans, and amber skies.

The journey is a high-contrast battle for the future of the species. From the explosive "Breach" of hundreds of ships erupting into the stars to the quiet beauty of a new world resting under a golden gas giant, Ethan Ross crafts a cinematic epic of sacrifice and rebirth. In a universe defined by brutalist technology and alien shadows, can one woman's emerald light lead humanity home?

By Ethan Ross

 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ethan Ross
• Release date: Jan 2, 2026
• ISBN: 9798227005991

Ethan Ross

Ethan Ross is a versatile and prolific author who refuses to be confined to a single genre. While he is acclaimed for his bone-chilling holiday horror, such as the terrifying Santa's Slay List and the short story collections like The December Dark, he demonstrates mastery across the literary spectrum. In addition to crafting relentless tales of winter dread and forgotten folklore, Ross also writes romance that explores the complexities of human connection, high-stakes thrillers that keep readers on the edge of their seats, and many other genres, proving his capacity to engage audiences with a wide array of narrative styles and emotional depths. His diverse body of work showcases a broad storytelling range that promises something for every type of reader.

Book preview

Prologue

The city did not sleep ; it breathed. It was a rhythmic, artificial respiration performed by the massive atmospheric scrubbers that hummed at the edges of the skyline, turning the carbon of a dying world into the oxygen of a thriving one. In the year 2085, the world was a masterpiece of green and gold. Neo-Kyoto rose from the earth like a forest of alabaster and glass, its surfaces covered in bioluminescent moss that glowed a soft, pulsing azure as the sun dipped below the horizon.

To the tourists who arrived on the mag-lev rails, the city was a cathedral of progress. They saw the sparkling waterfalls cascading down the sides of the residential spires and the solar-sails that caught the light like the wings of dragonflies. They did not see the Silt Districts. They did not see the people like Elara Vance, who lived in the spaces between the shadows, where the sunlight was a luxury and the truth was a commodity.

Elara sat on the rusted edge of a cooling vent, three hundred stories above the forest floor. Below her, the canopy was a sea of shifting emeralds. Above her, the Sun-Grid—a lattice of mirrors and collectors—began to dim, signaling the start of the artificial dusk. She pulled a small, silver flask from her pocket and took a sip of lukewarm water. It tasted of copper and old pipes.

She wasn't looking at the view. She was looking at a jagged scar on her left wrist, a mark left by a neural-link that had malfunctioned ten years ago. It was the only physical evidence she had that her sister, Kaelin, had ever existed.

In the Great Reconstruction, the Council had promised that memory would be the new currency. With the advent of Neuro-Mapping, no one had to lose a loved one; their consciousness could be archived, their wisdom preserved in the digital amber of the city’s central core. But memory was a fickle thing. It could be edited. It could be pruned. And for Elara, it had been stolen.

The night Kaelin vanished, the official record stated there had been a systemic collapse in the lab where they worked. The data had been corrupted beyond repair. Elara had woken up in a sterile hospital room with a hole in her mind where her childhood should have been. She could remember the color of Kaelin’s favorite sweater—a deep, bruised plum—but she couldn't remember her face. Every time she tried to visualize her sister, she saw only a static-filled void, a white-noise scream that echoed in the back of her skull.

Scavenger, a voice crackled through her earpiece.

Elara didn't jump. She was used to the intrusion. Jax was the only person who knew her real frequency, a man who dealt in the discarded fragments of history. He operated out of a basement in the Silt District, surrounded by mountains of obsolete hardware and the ghosts of dead machines.

I'm here, Jax, she said, her voice a low rasp against the wind.

I’ve got a job. A big one. The kind that gets people like us erased from the census if we stay too long.

Elara tightened her grip on the flask. I’m not in the mood for politics, Jax. I need a lead on the Archive, not a suicide mission.

This is the lead, El, Jax’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. Arthur Penhaligon is dead. The man who designed the Sun-Grid. He had a private server—a 'Ghost-Drive'—hidden in his primary cortex. The Council is moving to scrub it within the hour. If you get in there before the cleaners, you might find more than just blueprints. I heard a rumor he was obsessed with the 2075 collapse. The same night your sister went dark.

Elara felt a cold chill that had nothing to do with the evening air. The 2075 collapse was the official name for the accident that had erased her past. If Penhaligon had been keeping records, if he had been mapping the very memories the Council claimed were lost...

Where is he? she asked.

The Under-Garden. Level Zero. They’re holding the body for 'ceremonial preparation,' but we both know what that means. They’re waiting for the neuro-decay to set in so they can claim the data was unrecoverable.

Elara stood up, her dark duster snapping in the wind. She looked out at the city—this beautiful, shining lie built on a foundation of forgotten lives. She wasn't a hero. She was a scavenger. But for the first time in a decade, she felt the static in her mind begin to clear, replaced by a sharp, singular focus.

I’m moving now, she said.

She stepped off the ledge, her magnetic-boots locking onto the service rail of the spire. She began her descent into the shadows, leaving the sunlight behind. She didn't know that by the end of the night, the city she called home would become her greatest enemy. She didn't know that the dead man waiting for her on the slab held the key to a door she wasn't sure she was ready to open.

The hunt for the truth had begun, and the price of memory was about to be paid in blood.

Chapter 1: The Fragility of Glass

The Under-Garden was a cathedral of damp stone and artificial silence. Located at Level Zero, it sat beneath the weight of three hundred stories of Neo-Kyoto’s ambition, a place where the roots of the vertical forests finally met the cold, unyielding bedrock of the old world. Here, the air was different. It lacked the filtered, citrus-infused lightness of the upper spires. Instead, it tasted of wet earth, copper, and the faint, bitter sting of ozone that leaked from ancient, overworked power conduits.

Elara Vance moved through the shadows of the peripheral corridor, her footsteps silenced by the soft-sole boots of a professional interloper. Above her, the ceiling was a maze of hanging vines and exposed fiber-optic cables, dripping with condensation that fell like slow, rhythmic tears onto the moss-covered floor. She checked her wrist-display. The bioluminescent pulse of the city’s security net was three floors up, cycling in a slow, predictable sweep. For now, she was in a blind spot—a pocket of neglect in a city that obsessed over every square inch of its surface.

I’m at the perimeter, Elara whispered into the haptic mic tucked against her jaw. The air is heavy, Jax. Is the scrubber system down in this sector?

Not down, just ignored, Jax’s voice crackled in her ear, his signal struggling against the density of the stone. The Council doesn't care about the breathing quality of the dead. You’re looking for Chamber Four. It’s the one with the reinforced titanium doors. They’re using a temporary cryogenic lock to preserve Penhaligon’s neural pathways until the 'Cleaners' arrive. You’ve got a window, Elara, but it’s closing. My sensors show a security transport just left the Spire. Ten minutes, maybe twelve.

Elara didn't respond. She reached the door of Chamber Four. It was a stark contrast to the organic decay of the corridor—a slab of brushed steel that looked like a surgical incision in the rock. She pulled a bypass kit from her duster, the small tools clicking together with a sound that felt dangerously loud in the stillness. Her fingers, calloused from years of handling raw circuitry and cold steel, moved with a grace born of necessity.

The lock hissed—a release of pressurized nitrogen—and the door slid open.

The temperature inside the chamber dropped thirty degrees. A thin mist of frost rolled across the floor, curling around Elara’s boots. In the center of the room, lying on a raised pedestal of white marble, was Arthur Penhaligon. He looked like a fallen king. His suit was made of fine, solar-spun silk that shimmered even in the dim emergency lighting, and his hands were folded over his chest as if he were merely sleeping. But his skin had the translucent, waxy quality of a dying candle, and his eyes were closed over a mind that was currently dissolving into static.

Elara approached the body. Every instinct she possessed told her to turn back. Working with the dead was a specialized, desperate trade. When a person died, their neural map didn't just vanish; it began to fray at the edges, the synapses firing in a chaotic, final symphony before fading into the black. To step into that mind was to risk being caught in the collapse.

Handshake in sixty seconds, Elara said, her breath blooming in the cold air.

She pulled the neural-sync headset from her bag. It was a custom-built rig, a hybrid of Council-grade hardware and black-market processors. She fitted the titanium bands around her temples, the cold metal stinging her skin. She took a deep, steadying breath, trying to slow her heart rate. In the drift, your own emotions could act as noise, distorting the very memories you were trying to see.

She reached out and placed her gloved hand on Penhaligon’s forehead. The contact was jarring. He was so cold that he felt like stone.

Initializing, she whispered.

She tapped the sequence on her wrist-cuff. The world didn't vanish all at once. First, the edges of the room began to blur, the white marble of the pedestal bleeding into the gray of the floor. Then, the sound of the dripping water in the corridor was replaced by a low, rhythmic hum—the sound of a mind trying to process a century of data in its final seconds.

Click.

The drift took her.

Suddenly, Elara was no longer in the Under-Garden. She was standing in a room of pure, blinding light. It was an office, but the walls were made of liquid glass, showing the city of Neo-Kyoto as it had looked decades ago—half-finished, a skeleton of steel reaching for the stars. This was Penhaligon’s Mind-Palace, the structured environment he used to organize his designs.

But something was wrong. The glass was cracking. Great, jagged fissures ran through the sky, and the light was flickering with a sickly, yellow hue. This was the neural decay. The architect’s memories were literally falling apart.

Arthur? Elara called out. Her voice sounded strange here, layered and resonant. Arthur Penhaligon, I’m looking for the 2075 Archive.

A shadow moved at the edge of her vision. She turned, expecting to see the elderly architect. Instead, she saw a man in his thirties, his face sharp and full of a terrifying vitality. He was hunched over a desk made of light, his fingers flying through a holographic blueprint.

It wasn't a failure, the man muttered, his voice a frantic staccato. It was a harvest. They needed the energy. They needed the lives to kickstart the grid.

Arthur, listen to me, Elara stepped forward, her boots making a sound like breaking glass on the floor of his memory. The Archive. Where is the record of the Lab Fourteen incident?

The man looked up. His eyes were not human; they were spinning gears of gold and silver, reflecting a thousand different images at once. He looked through Elara, his gaze landing on something behind her.

The girl, he whispered. The girl with the plum sweater. She was the first. The catalyst.

Elara’s heart hammered against her ribs—a physical sensation that shouldn't have been possible in a neural simulation. What girl? Where is she?

The architect stood up, and as he did, the room began to dissolve. The glass walls shattered, the shards falling upward into a dark, swirling sky. The blueprints on his desk turned into black birds and flew away. The architect reached out, grabbing Elara by the shoulders. His grip felt real, a desperate, bruising force.

They didn't kill her, Elara, he hissed, his voice echoing as if from the bottom of a well. They folded her. She’s in the marrow. She’s the pulse of the city.

Before she could ask another question, the scene shifted violently. The light died, replaced by a sudden, crushing darkness. Elara felt herself falling, the sensation of gravity returning with a vengeance. She was back in the lab—not Penhaligon’s office, but the lab from ten years ago. She smelled the burning ozone. She heard the scream.

Kaelin.

A figure stood in the center of the darkness. It was a girl, her back to Elara. She was wearing a denim jacket with a jagged tear on the shoulder. She turned slowly, her face obscured by a veil of static, but her voice was clear—heartbreakingly clear.

You’re looking in the wrong direction, El, the girl said. Don't look at the memories they left you. Look at the shadows they tried to light.

The girl pointed upward, and for a split second, the static cleared. Elara saw a crystalline cube sitting on a pedestal made of human bone. It glowed with a soft, pulsing violet light.

Elara! Pull out! Now! Jax’s voice was a thunderclap, shattering the vision. The Cleaners are at the door! The lock is being overridden!

The vision of the girl vanished. The dark lab was replaced by the cold, biting air of the Under-Garden. Elara’s eyes snapped open. She was back on the floor, her headset sparking, a thin trail of blood trickling from her nose.

The heavy, mechanical thud of the chamber door being hit from the outside echoed through the room.

Jax, Elara gasped, her voice raw. I saw her. I saw Kaelin.

There’s no time, El! Get to the ventilation shaft! If they catch you with a dead Council member, you won't even get a trial!

Elara scrambled to her feet, her head spinning with vertigo. She looked at Penhaligon’s body. He was still, his expression peaceful, but his eyes were now open—dull and vacant. Whatever secret he had been holding, it was now partly hers. And it was a secret that felt like a death sentence.

She grabbed her bag and dove for the maintenance hatch hidden behind a drape of synthetic ivy just as the main doors hissed open. A flash of white light illuminated the room—the tactical lamps of the Council Cleaners.

Clear the room, a cold, modulated voice commanded. Secure the neural-link. If the scavenger is still here, terminate on sight.

Elara pulled the hatch shut, the darkness of the ventilation shaft swallowing her whole. She began to climb, her fingers gripping the cold rungs of the ladder, her mind a storm of static and violet light. The architect had called her sister the catalyst. He had said she was in the marrow.

As she climbed higher, away from the dead man and into the belly of the city, Elara Vance knew one thing for certain: Neo-Kyoto wasn't just a garden. It was a machine. And it was powered by the ghosts of the people it had promised to save.

Chapter 2: The Silt District

The descent from the heights of the Under-Garden into the bowels of the Silt District was not a journey of distance, but of decay. In Neo-Kyoto, altitude was the ultimate social currency. The higher one climbed, the thinner the air became, the brighter the sun-grid shone, and the more the world felt like a pristine, digital hallucination. But as Elara slid down the secondary ventilation chutes, the transition was visceral. The air grew heavy and damp, losing its crisp, pine-scented filtration and taking on the scent of wet soot, rusted iron, and the pervasive, sweet rot of the Silt—the layer of organic waste and industrial runoff that accumulated at the city's true foundation.

She hit the bottom of the shaft with a jarring thud, her magnetic-boots absorbing the worst of the impact. She didn't move for a long moment, pressing her back against the cold, vibrating metal of the vent. Above her, she could hear the distant, muffled echoes of the Council Cleaners—their boots clicking against the titanium floors like the mandibles of insects. They wouldn't follow her here. Not yet. The Silt District was a No-Map zone, a labyrinth of overlapping structures from three different centuries where the city's GPS signals went to die.

Jax, she whispered, her hand trembling as she tapped her earpiece. I’m in the Silt. Sector Seven. Tell me you’ve got eyes on the trackers.

Barely, Jax’s voice was a mess of electronic birdsong and static. The interference is spiking. The Council just lit up a local jammer. They’re taking Penhaligon’s death a lot more seriously than a standard heart attack. El, you didn't just scrape a memory. You tripped a silent alarm buried in his subconscious. Whatever you saw, it was booby-trapped.

Elara stood up, wiping a smear of blood and grease from her forehead. I saw my sister, Jax. I saw Kaelin. She was there, in his head. She looked... exactly the same. And she told me to look at the shadows.

There was a long silence on the other end. Jax knew the history. He was the one who had spent three years helping Elara sift through the digital debris of the 2075 collapse, looking for a ghost that the official records insisted didn't exist.

Get to the shop, Jax said, his voice dropping an octave. We can't talk about this on an open burst. Move through the pipe-works. I’ll keep the back door unshielded for thirty minutes.

Elara disconnected. She pulled the collar of her dark duster up against the biting chill of the Silt. The district was a graveyard of architecture. Ancient brick walls from the original city were reinforced with carbon-fiber beams, and neon signs from a forgotten era flickered with a dying, stuttering orange glow. People lived here—the un-synced, those who couldn't afford the neural-mapping subscriptions or who, like Elara, preferred to keep their minds their own. They moved like ghosts through the fog, their faces obscured by breathing masks and heavy hoods.

She navigated the familiar turns of the Silt with a hunter’s intuition. She avoided the main thoroughfares, staying in the narrow gap-ways where the pipes hummed with the city’s grey-water. Every few minutes, she paused, listening for the distinctive, high-pitched whine of