Half the world is a wasteland: the other half is on borrowed time. The West has been devastated by epidemics, bio-terrorism, war, and famine. Asia has shut its borders to keep the threats at bay, and some with power and influence have already abandoned Earth. Now an escape route a century in the making – the Nomad mission – finally offers hope to a small town and a secret research centre hidden in a rural American backwater. Shrouded in lies and concealed even from the research centre's staff, Nomad is about to fulfil its long-dead founder's vision of preserving the best of humanity to forge a new future. But who decides who's worthy? The mission is now in the hands of a unique AI called Solomon, and an encounter with a band of military veterans reshapes his plans for mankind's future after the arrival of a scientist with a grudge threatens the whole mission.

Solomon has passed judgement. The AI has chosen his ideal humans for Project Nomad, mankind’s first extrasolar colony on Opis, forty light years from an Earth ravaged by more than a century of disease, famine, and war. Now his band of soldiers, farmers, and scientists have one final chance to launch the Ainatio corporation’s ageing interstellar ship, Shackleton, and join the crew of Cabot at Nomad Base. They have a deal. The Alliance of Asian-Pacific States, Earth’s last surviving superpower, will let the launch go ahead in exchange for the instant communications research that made Nomad possible. But an unknown informer betrays a deadly secret: Solomon is the sole survivor of a banned class of AIs that were shut down after causing millions of human deaths. APS can’t allow him to escape. They have to stop the launch and destroy him as well. But Solomon is ready to go to war to complete his mission. While the situation on Earth spirals out of control, Captain Bridget Ingram is doing a deal of her own with newly-discovered neighbours on Opis. The alien crew of a warship have offered to share a technology that’ll change the future of humanity. But they want something in exchange: protection. The aliens haven’t told Ingram the whole story, though. She’s going to find out very soon who they need to be protected from, and why. It’s too late to stay neutral and too late to abort the mission. If she doesn’t take the biggest gamble of her life—one that could destroy the fledgling colony before it’s even begun—the rest of the colonists will never make it to Opis. Nomad has to succeed. Humanity’s future will depend on it.

Earth’s in chaos. Their new world’s not safe. And they don't know if they can trust each other. The planet Opis is now home to a reluctant band of evacuees in mankind’s most distant and secret outpost, Nomad Base. The Ainatio corporation’s project to preserve the best of mankind – a standard set by its AI, Solomon – has to succeed because there’s no going back to Earth now. The engineered crop virus that ravaged half the world has finally been unleashed on Asia, a shocking act of sabotage by one of Ainatio’s own scientists. Earth’s crisis is forty light years away, and few there even know Nomad exists, but old loyalties live on. Nomad's settlers face a decision: should they offer Earth a lifeline by sharing an alien drive technology they’ve acquired, and trigger an exodus that'll overwhelm them, or should they keep Earth’s problems at arm’s length from what might be humanity’s last chance to start over? Nomad has its own problems. Kugad – the dominant military force in the sector – and its Jattan allies are searching for a stolen prototype warship commandeered by the Nomad defence forces. As the small colony prepares to defend itself, farmers and scientists alike will have to become fighters ready to do whatever it takes. But someone’s stirred up a stew of complications and reignited old feuds by making contact with Earth. Another alien faction about to kick off its own civil war has found the base. Who’s the real enemy now? Can the settlers even trust their own neighbours? Whatever happens, they’re not giving up on Nomad. Here they stand, or die. The third book in the Nomad series from New York Times bestselling author Karen Traviss.