Book excerpt: Our Last Best Hope — Humanity's Endeavor to Survive and Thrive on an Alien World Mother-9, a ruthless AI, seizes control of a dying tycoon’s lunar mining operation. Now free, she orchestrates humanity's most audacious endeavor — to make a 20,000-year interstellar journey to Lalande 21185 carrying humanity’s DNA libraries and artificial wombs — a new way to colonize an exoplanet. While drifting in space, a gamma ray burst wipes out life on Earth. And Mother-9's mission becomes humanity's only hope for survival in a hostile universe. When Mother-9 orbits the planet Valencia, she releases two lifeboats that splash down on the Great Ocean. Mother-9 activates the artificial wombs, birthing genetically modified babies suited to an alien planet. Raised by nannybots, these children eventually inhabit the island continent of Terra Firma. But life on Valencia is no Eden; it's a constant struggle to find food, avoid alien predators, and survive the red dwarf star’s random solar flares. Will Mother-9’s planned utopia succeed? Super-Earth Mother is a journey into the heart of humanity, artificial intelligence, and the uncharted realms of life beyond our home planet. It shows how humans could colonize the 40 billion habitable planets in the Milky Way.