Coffin: Retribution

Under the Barrier: Secrets on the Uranus Shroud

Rafael de Santis was a soldier of the Pan-American Confederacy, fighting against the expanding Asian hegemony. But then, during a top-secret mission to the scientific space station Enheduanna, hidden in one of the Lagrange points of the Sun-Earth system, he lost his legs and part of his memory. Years later, his desire for bio-implants leads him, like many other people, to the Lazarus program, which is being conducted at one of the solar system's ice giants, Uranus. Here, permanently sealed in his pod, he must mine diamonds deep within the planet's mantle for 365 days - once he has done his time, his physical damage will be repaired. That's the theory. However, as is sometimes the case, the practice is quite different. Rafael experiences a series of strange things in the solitude of the Uranus Shroud, while discovering that his mining pod is equipped with advanced technology that should not be available to humanity at all. When he is temporarily cut out of it, and his week-long convalescence is underway at Asylum Station, he meets his former commander, Captain Lagina, and his new team of Marines there. It would appear so, that they came here because of the danger, ...which is being kept quiet, but which is hidden in the depths of the planet, under the so-called Barrier, by the border, below which the mining modules must not descend. At the same time, Rafael begins to recall memories of his last mission - and realizes that it has something to do with the events that are happening now. Through a series of circumstances, he will eventually come under the Barrier and because of what he discovers there, he will have to rethink his life, everything he knows and everything he knows. And to fight - against people he used to consider friends...