Machine Code — David Stroup

On the distant planet Longlast, freelance journalist Temple Argent joins a team of scientists with plans to reconstruct the Cretaceous ecosystem. When one of the scientists is bizarrely murdered, Temple teams up with Kathryn Tamashio to investigate. They find themselves in danger ... and falling in love.

Meanwhile, in the orbital habitat of Ophiuchi, a young artificial intelligence named Hawkens DuPree considers buying her freedom from the AI who owns her. To complicate matters, her ex-boyfriend Benedictine Thrace pitches up to ask for a small favour. Suddenly her ordered life takes a wild turn and she meets the Spider Lady Ariadne, a woman so integrated with station systems that she lives in permanent free fall.

Elsewhere in space, shuttle pilot Aly Castillos crashes her freighter on an alien planet populated by Makers who hold her captive. When human consul Loren Macke arrives to negotiate her freedom, he finds himself kidnapped, as well. Aly escapes with the help of her guard A'thiathialae, and despite their differences, they team up to rescue Loren.

As the Human and Maker worlds converge, unseen forces conspire to shift interplanetary alliances. The fate of civilizations hangs in the balance. Will these scattered individuals be able to survive the machinations of the Engines of Dusk?