Time Fuze

The first interstellar voyage has barely reached Alpha Centauri when its crew faces an impossible emergency: the star begins swelling toward a catastrophic nova. Commander Benedict must use the experimental ultradrive to flee the blast, while Dr. Leicher races to record an astronomical event that may occur only once in a billion years. Their narrow escape leaves the scientists with extraordinary data—but also an unsettling question about the timing of the explosion.

Weeks into the return journey, the ship is safely outrunning the light from the dying star, and Benedict turns to routine logs and dwindling provisions. Then Leicher uncovers calculations suggesting that Alpha Centauri’s destruction was far less random than anyone imagined. What began as a triumph of exploration becomes a tense scientific mystery, as the crew tries to understand whether their voyage encountered a freak cosmic accident—or something far more deliberate.