The novel “Lightless” by C.A. Higgins was published for the first time in 2015. It’s the first book of the Lightless trilogy.

The Ananke scientific spaceship is engaged in a research mission by order of the System, the regime that rules the solar system. The mission is put in jeopardy when two strangers board the Ananke with intentions that are unclear but presumably not friendly. After a fight with the crew, one of them escapes but the other gets captured.

Identified as Leontios Ivanov called Ivan, a thief with links to a terrorist organization, the prisoner gets questioned. The System sends Ida Stays of the intelligence to find out what he wanted to do on the Ananke along with his accomplice, identified as Matthew Gale, and the identity of the terrorist organization’s leader. The Ananke’s artificial intelligence malfunctions, presumably as a result of sabotage, making the situation more complex.