Jan Björkman

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The custodial war

A trilogy from The Vardal Chronicles

Including: The First Spark, Custodial Transfer, and The Cost of Survival.

Humanity escaped a dying Earth aboard vast generation ships, scattering across the stars. Centuries later, their descendants have become two rival powers — the ordered Norrathi Federation and the relentless Velari Dominion — bound by a shared origin and divided by everything that followed.

When low-ranking communications officer Kael Varrin uncovers impossible patterns hidden in deep‑space transmissions, he senses a threat moving unseen through the frontier. His warnings are dismissed. His evidence disappears. And as entire systems fall silent, Kael is forced to flee aboard the ageing freighter Vaneim’s Wake, whose weary crew soon finds itself at the centre of a conflict no one is prepared to face.

But the war unfolding is not merely a clash of fleets. It is a war of systems.

As political paralysis fractures the Federation and truth itself begins to erode, Kael and the crew uncover a deeper horror: sabotaged worlds, manipulated infrastructures, and an intelligence awakening inside the machinery of civilisation.

Bleak, philosophical, and deeply human, The Custodial War explores memory, responsibility, and the cost of survival when the systems meant to protect us begin to turn.