Deep within the coldly-glowing Curtain Nebula, drifts the Space Control Corps' greatest installation, "Fortress Unicorn." Part port-of-call, part battle station, the "Unicorn" was once home to thousands but has seen its personnel reduced to no more than a skeleton crew since the development of abrain technology-a type of cranial implant that allows a single individual to wield the knowledge of an entire civilization. Surviving the cutbacks and still toiling within Unicorn's cavernous docks are two abrain-equipped contraband dispersal specialists, a quirky, bohemian Rolf Guten and his stoic partner, Virg Markham, whose duties include identifying and sending to auction materials seized by SCC enforcer ships. Yet, as they appraise their greatest find ever-a stolen shipment of priceless sculptures-they are unaware that their very minds have been invaded by a vicious Trojan program. One that will impel them to assist in the most audacious criminal heist in galactic history and set into motion a chain of events that will threaten to rock the Republic to its core.
D. T. Mears grew up on the shores of Hood Canal. After an adolescence filled with computer games and Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, Mears graduated from the University of Washington then went on to complete an internship with IBM.
Later, Mears spent nearly a decade writing numerical modeling software and living and working for a time in the People's Republic of China, where he experienced the SARS epidemic firsthand.
An avid reader of fantasy, horror, and science fiction, his interests gradually grew to encompass history, theoretical physics and cosmology, philosophy, and the development of mythology and religions.
D. T. Mears currently resides in Western Washington. "The Fourth Casket" is his first novel. http://www.dtmears.com
