Kinetic Cut and Run

After one hundred years of near universal peace, Kinetica Corporation rules over most of humanity's twenty-seven worlds. It finds itself under attack by a terrorist splinter faction from within the company. The terrorists control a murder machine known as the Chromic Mass, a man-made mobile self-replicating factory, a product of human vanity, perverted and reprogrammed into a lethal killer on a grand scale. Ida Kaufman, leader of Human Resources at Kinetica, seeks someone for the ultimate job: C.E.O. of Kinetica. Emotionally compromised by an early attack by the Chromic Mass, she finds a distress call from a lowly pirate, a man who might just fill the position. But is Shelden Renn the right man, or is her choice purely personal and selfish? Shelden Renn, a self-styled freelance miner, still mourns the death of his fianc of ten years previous. While mining in a restricted area, he stumbles upon proof of intelligent alien life, and also witnesses the birth of Kinetica's greatest threat: the Chromic Mass. Kinetica hires him as a consultant. He rises through the ranks at lightning speed to become a figurehead for the company. He finds that he, and the sentient aliens that he had discovered, might be humanity's final hope in a battle that will determine the fate of all.