A Game of Hearts and Graphs

When kyanah soldier Rayen-pack is unexpectedly pulled out of cryo months before they are due to arrive on Earth, the four of them are instantly plunged into a high-stakes and terrifying game of sabotage and deception where their own ship is equal parts weapon, chessboard, and sanctuary, and every pack on board seems to have their own plot to ensure their survival. As perverse incentives mount upon perverse incentives, the ship falls into disrepair, and everyone holds a knife to each other's backs, Rayen-pack knows that the only way to survive both their comrades in arms and the enemy, snuggle in their nests, and protect the one thing they truly love--their pack--is to play every move perfectly. Meanwhile, in Flagstaff, affable but alcoholic and emotionally unavailable astronomer Scott Watson watches the skies with his new romantic interest, bright but insecure and desperately overworked PhD student Lauren Xie. As he avoids confronting their shared demons and loses himself deeper and deeper in trying to uncover the mystery of the approaching alien starships, his relationship with his 17-year-old son Luke unravels further and further. Luke's only friend, Harrison Walker, a farm boy from a strict military family, lives in the shadow of his older brother JJ, a decorated Marine, and desperately  seeks a similar level of approval from his parents. In the sleepy town of Lake Havasu City, mid-tier influencer Leah Stone skyrockets to fame thanks to the kyanah and the dumb luck of the algorithm, her visiting kid sister Rosie finds a new purpose in the shadow of the invasion, crooked cop Jason Marshall also finds a new yet much darker purpose, and his estranged ex Cassie Miller finds herself torn between protecting their six-year-old son Sammy and her own aging parents at ground zero of an alien invasion. The paths of two species who cannot talk to each other and cannot understand each other are about to collide in the desert in the most violent way possible.