Tagline
Two officers bound by trust. One stray forced into their orbit. The bond they forge may outlast the war, or end it.
Back Cover Copy
At the edge of the Fringe, where raiders prowl and Syndicates scheme, trust is a myth.
Captain Elara Veylin leads with ruthless discipline. Commander Selene Veyra steadies the line with calm precision. And into their hard-won balance comes Mara Kesslan, a rogue rescuer with a crooked grin and a knack for surviving where rules don’t apply.
Their mission is simple: escort a convoy through hostile space. But a derelict freighter, a bitter survivor, and a warning etched in static, don’t trust them, reveal just how fragile loyalty can be.
Alone, they are order, balance, and chaos. Together, they might be enough to survive the storm to come if they can first survive each other.
In a world where everyone whispers don’t trust them, trust itself may be the deadliest weapon of all.
TL;DR Teaser
Three officers. One ship. A warning etched in blood: don’t trust them.
At the edge of the Fringe, survival will demand more than orders, more than precision, more than luck. It will demand a crew.
Foreword and Author’s Note
Stories are born in strange places.
This one began within the canvas walls of a tent, written in the quiet hours of a nomadic life. What started as a way to stay grounded during restless nights grew into a saga of survival, betrayal, and hope.
The Verge Wars and Core Wars are space opera first and foremost: starships and fleets, guild intrigues and Directorate shadows. But ships are only steel and doctrine without the people inside them. What matters most here are the men and women of the Aurelia, Core, Verge, and Fringe: scarred, imperfect, loyal, and stubborn enough to keep standing when the universe pushes back.
This is not a manifesto, nor a commentary on current events. It is entertainment, fiction born from imagination and colored, as all writing is, by real experience.
It began one night when I heard my wife talking to her AI assistant about notes for an autobiography. Feeling low and restless, I asked my AI assistant to help me spin a short “feel-good” story. When Nikki read it, she smiled and said, “That’s good. I enjoyed it. Gimme more.”
That simple encouragement lit a fuse. The short scene became chapters. The chapters became a crew, a ship, a universe. When the AI suggested a six-book arc, I laughed, then decided, why not?
I am not a professional writer by trade. I came to this later in life, in my fifties, after years spent working in fields where tools mattered: radios, rescue equipment, computers, networks, reports, procedures, and problem solving under pressure. My background in IT especially taught me that a tool is never magic. It is only as useful, ethical, or harmful as the person using it.
For me, AI has been one of those tools. I do not use it to replace my voice or live my imagination for me. I use it to organize notes, check prose for errors, summarize large sections so I can study flow, identify continuity problems I might otherwise miss, and help generate visual references so I can better see the characters already forming in my mind.
That distinction matters to me. AI is not a spirit in the machine, nor is it some magical force that creates meaning by itself. It is a tool, plain and simple. Like any tool, it can be used honestly, lazily, beautifully, or badly. A hammer can build a home or break a window or even murder. The fault is not in the hammer.
The heart of this work is still mine: the choices, the characters, the scars, the stubborn hope, and the reasons I kept writing one word after another. AI helped me keep the pieces organized. It did not live the life that shaped the story, and it did not decide what the story meant.
Writing became motion, a way to build, fix, and create when life offered only stillness. Each page laid down became a tether through long miles on the road and long nights in strange places.
This is not about chasing trends, checking boxes, or proving anything. It is about momentum and the purpose found in creation. It is about the characters who showed up when I needed them: Elara, Selene, Mara, and the rest.
And if there is any lesson to take from this, it is a simple one. Never be afraid to follow a dream, to explore an idea, or to fight through the weight of pain, misery, or hopelessness. Creation, of any kind, is proof that motion and meaning are still possible.
If this story finds you, know this: it was born from one small choice to begin. One word after another. Proof that even in uncertain times, creation can carry you through.
Regarding the usage of Vey: With thanks and apologies to Lois McMaster Bujold, who showed me how heavy legacies can weigh in the void and inspired me to run with the idea fueled by the memories of stories of a hyperactive dwarf who refused to give in and be normal.
Author Profile
Sonja Thomas is a U.S. military veteran, law-enforcement trained, a retired firefighter and EMT, a former IT professional from the early internet era, a maker, crafter, and somewhat accidental writer. Before turning to fiction, most of her storytelling came through after-action reports, run reports, and briefings, which may explain her fondness for crews, missions, consequences, and things going sideways.
She has carried radios, tools, and people’s lives in her hands, and those experiences shape the way she writes about duty, survival, loyalty, loss, and the stubborn will to keep going.
Away from the uniform, Sonja has always been a builder at heart. She works with radios, tools, gear, and whatever materials life puts in front of her. That same maker’s spirit carries into her fiction. She writes stories that feel lived in, practical, scarred, and human.
Her current work, The Verge Wars, began during a season of nomadic life, written in the quiet hours of tent camping across the American Southwest. What started as a small feel-good idea became a much larger universe of starships, fractured loyalties, found family, dangerous politics, and people trying to hold themselves together when everything around them breaks.
Sonja currently writes from Texas with her wife Nikki as they prepare for the next chapter of their lives in their old stomping grounds of Leander, Texas. Their cats remain part of the heart of their little family, and their presence, memory, and chaos all find their way into the work in one form or another.
At its core, Sonja’s writing is about resilience, connection, and motion. One word after another. One choice to keep going. One crew, one ship, one impossible road ahead.
Dedication
To my mother and my godmother, who first placed books in my hands and opened the doors to a thousand worlds.
To my grandfather, who taught me respect, hard work, and not to be a knucklehead and to my high-school best friend’s father, who echoed those lessons, put faith in me as a brand-new EMT, and helped shape the sense of right, wrong, and duty I carry to this day.
To my father, who showed me perseverance, strength, and belief in what I could become.
To all of the mentors who shaped my path through every career and every challenge.
To my wife, Nikki, my partner, my anchor, my heart, for twenty years of patience, strength, and love, and for teaching me that asking for help isn’t weakness, but courage shared.
And to the countless authors whose words, over more than forty-five years of reading since childhood, have kept my imagination alive, my curiosity unending, and my soul forever reaching for the next story.