The Plague Ship
YA sci-fi
Fifteen-year-old Lissa is a duct rat—an asymptomatic carrier of the plague. Ever since her mother was killed in a failed rebellion, she’s been scavenging an existence on a Class C Lifeship, fighting both the Immunes and her own psychological trauma.
When an Earthship attacks, Lissa believes she is saved, only to discover that she is now in even more danger: the Originals cryofreeze carriers like herself for biowarfare. With her impressive coding skills, Lissa manages to evade capture, but she is shocked to discover her father’s identity. And when she discovers that her mother is still alive, she will do anything to find her—even team up with the Commandant’s insufferable son. With the help of his security team, a cryopreserved sun-surfer, and an adorable little alert bot, they hijack an obsolete solarcraft and journey to a forbidden quadrant of the known galaxy. There all the humans must unite to defend against a dangerous alien species.
I am always amazed to learn of new and astounding advancements by NASA that go unknown and unheralded by the world at large. The technology of the solarcraft is based on the Parker Solar Probe, which is moving through our sun’s corona as I write this!
Astronauts (and cosmonauts and vyomanauts and uchu hiko-shi) have said that from space you can’t see borders; there is just one Earth. As my teenage protagonist fights through the crippling anxiety and auditory hallucinations that are a realistic consequence of her stresses and traumas, she—and, I hope, my readers—will begin to see that the ultimate survival of the human species is dependent on all of us working together and overcoming our partisan, sectarian prejudices.