Cibola Burn is a 2014 science fiction novel by James S. A. Corey (pen name of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) and the fourth book in The Expanse series.

[2] Cibola Burn serves as the basis for the fourth season of the television series The Expanse, which was released by Amazon Video December 13, 2019.

Prior to the blockade taking effect, the Barbapiccola, a ship of refugees from Ganymede (displaced by the events of Caliban's War) fled through the ring and founded a lithium mining colony on Ilus called First Landing.

The RCE survivors, including biologist Elvi Okoye, are taken in by the citizens of the town and the two sides begin to uneasily coexist, although the knowledge that some of the colonists had been involved in the attack causes tensions to rise.

As the situation inches closer to further violence, the UN and OPA decide to send Jim Holden and the crew of the Rocinante to mediate the interactions between the colonists and RCE.

The Edward Israel's chief of security, the psychotic Adolphus Murtry, lands on the planet himself, arriving just before Holden and Amos from the Rocinante.

On the unarmed Edward Israel, the acting chief of security Dmitri Havelock is instructed by Murtry to train a militia of engineers for combat, and to weaponize a shuttle.

Trapped on the surface together, the colonists, RCE personnel, and Holden's crew confront a variety of challenges, including a lack of food and water, an infestation of toxic worms, and a fungal growth that leads to blindness.

Holden is instructed by the vision of Miller to go explore the alien ruins where the blind spot is in order to disable to planetary defense system.

Holden shoots Murtry and disables him but, although he believes he deserves death, instead decides to take him back to the Solar System for trial.

With the feasibility of extrasolar colonies demonstrated by the survival of First Landing against all odds, a massive human migration through the Ring to other solar systems begins.