A predator hunts the skies over Earth. Its intent is peaceful, and its mission is essential, but it is the deadliest machine humanity has ever created.Piloted by a six-year-old girl, the godlike Skalm guards the Districts of TASC. Her family is long dead. Her adopted father is a synthetic copy of an alien, her nanny an artificial mind, connected via subspace to every part of the globe, feeding the young girl information, finding prey to satiate her...