Commander Jonas Taylor is tasked with piloting the US Navy's most advanced submersible, the DSV Sea Cliff, to the bottom of Challenger Deep — 36,000 feet below the surface — into what is very much an undiscovered country. What he finds there — a remnant population of luminous, prehistoric Megalodons — will change the course of the rest of his life.

In this prequel to his New York Times Bestseller, Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror, Alten sets the stage for the popular suspense series to follow. Fans of Meg will find it a must for offering insight into key characters' backstories, but the novella-length work also stands alone as a bite-sized tale of deep-sea suspense.

Seven years ago, and seven miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, Dr. Jonas Taylor encountered something that changed the course of his life. Once a Navy deep-sea submersible pilot, now a marine paleontologist, Taylor is convinced that a remnant population of Carcharodon megalodon — prehistoric sharks growing up to 70 feet long, that subsisted on whales — lurks at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. When offered the opportunity to return to those crushing depths in search of the Megs, Taylor leaps at the chance… but the quest for scientific knowledge (and personal vindication) becomes a desperate fight for survival, when the most vicious predator that the earth has ever known is freed to once-again hunt the surface.

Carcharodon megalodon apex predator of all time, the most fearsome creature that ever lived a 70-foot, 60,000 pound Great White Shark. Hundreds of 7-inch serrated teeth filled jaws that could swallow an elephant whole. It could sense its prey miles away, inhaling its scent as it registered the beat of its fluttering heart, and if you ever came close enough to see the monster...it was already too late. For Navy deep-sea submersible pilot Jonas Taylor, it nearly was too late. Years ago, on a top-secret dive seven miles down into the Mariana Trench, Jonas came face to face with an ancient monster everyone believed extinct. Having barely escaped with his life, Jonas must prove to the world that Meg still exists. When an opportunity to return to the trench presents itself, he takes it, intent on returning topside with a 7-inch tooth! But man s presence in this unexplored domain releases one of the sharks from its purgatory, and now Jonas is the only one who can stop it.