Book One of the Sustenance Moon Series

Sustenance Moon

Luke Hendren

In a galaxy billions of years old, humanity is the youngest player.
But the youngest voice can change everything.

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The Story

Elara's mother has always kept moving. Five years ago, they finally stopped in a small farming town where Elara thought she might stay long enough to build a life — a friend named Cillian, and a place that felt like home. But her mother's work remained a mystery. Disappearances. Encrypted messages. Questions that were never answered.

Then everything falls apart in a single day. First contact arrives on Earth, and Elara's mother finally reveals the truth: she's been running for years to keep Elara hidden. Hidden from something. Hidden from someone. And Elara carries a dormant power she's never been told about — a power that makes her invaluable to forces moving in the darkness.

Forced to flee alongside Cillian — whose own secrets prove he was never just her friend — Elara discovers that her mother's mysterious work was only the beginning. An ancient AI is reaching out. Alien factions are positioning themselves. And somewhere in the vast darkness between stars, a countdown begun millions of years ago is approaching its final seconds.

"An epic series about first contact, ancient mysteries, found family, and one girl's impossible choice to save worlds she's never seen."

Three Powers.
520 Systems. One Earth.
Godmother Serra · Testament
Godmother Serra Testament
"We fight with the certainty of the faithful."
120 Systems  ·  4 Trillion Souls
Theocracy · Missionary Expansion · Faith as Law
Monarchy · Conquest
The Echelon Host
"We rule through strength."
235 Systems  ·  190 Colonies
Monarchy · Tribute · Military Occupation
Technocracy · Meritocracy
Gossamer Syrtis Technocracy
"We don't need more. We need better."
165 Systems  ·  5.5 Trillion Souls
Meritocracy · Science · Defensive Superiority
A Universe Billions of Years Old
Vessel ·That goes where it's needed most

The Sustenance Moon

Two Hundred Million lives. One impossible ship. A rebellion that could save the galaxy—or end it.

200 Million Souls Aboard
Ability · Classified

The Spark

Elara thinks her instincts are luck. Her pattern recognition is observation. The pendant is just symbolic. She is wrong on all counts. What she carries is older than Earth's first civilisation — and every faction in the galaxy wants it.

Origin Unknown · Pre-Pax Accord
Threat · Deep History

The Unknown Enemy

They predate the Pax Accord by billions of years. Every advancing species eventually draws their attention. The culling isn't malice — it's protocol. A countdown encoded in ancient technology is running out.

Details Withheld — Book III
AI · Ancient Intelligence

Classified

It has watched civilizations rise and fall for four billion years. All other information Redacted

The Pax Accord · Galactic Law

The Triumvirate Pax Accord

The treaty that ended a 760-year civil war and divided 520 star systems among three powers. Year 51 PA. Still holding — barely. Six systems declaring independence simultaneously could collapse it entirely.

Year 0–51 Post-Accord
We're the youngest species at the table. But sometimes the youngest voice is the only one willing to say what everyone else already knows.
Elara Nikos — Sustenance Moon
Who Faces the Darkness
Protagonist · Earth · Age 15
Elara Nikos
Spark Inheritor. Reluctant revolutionary.

Five years of town-to-town running taught Elara to read people before they read her. She's hopeful without being naive — the kind of person who makes strangers into allies and chooses action even when terrified. She doesn't know yet why every faction in the galaxy wants her.

Intuitive Resilient Spark-Touched People-Reader
Deuteragonist · Earth · Age 16
Cillian Carrick
Runner Captain. Keeper of secrets. Friend.

Cillian thinks before he speaks. He plans before he acts. And he's been carrying a secret in the back of his skull since the night his grandfather died — an ancient AI consciousness that chose him for reasons neither of them fully understand yet.

Analytical Cautious Ghost-Node Host Pilot
Ancient Intelligence · 4 Billion Years
Classified
Protector. Coordinator. Something more.

It has watched civilizations rise and fall for four billion years. All other information Redacted.

Ancient AI Strategic Overconfident Protector
Testament Defector
Zora Nikos
Elara's mother. Earth's first soldier.

She's been running too — not from fear, but toward a war she's been quietly building for fifteen years. Combat specialist. She kept Elara in the dark to keep her alive. The question is whether that choice was right.

Combat Specialist Strategist Former Testament Operative Defector

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