This has been a very long series. Earth was being ravaged by a very dangerous virus called vemus when a collection of humans decided to go somewhere else, far, far away. They had identified a planet and were streaking towards it when word got out that the vemus infected humans were after them. So, they changed their destination to another planet and eventually settled on New Earth.
One of the colony leaders turned out to be a shanghaied special operations team lead by Connor Gates. Now Connor Gates is called General Gates and he has a wife, Lenora, and two very competent children, Lauren, a doctor, and Ethan, a member of the CDF. They have now returned to Earth to find out how their old homeworld was doing and if the Vemus had truly been defeated. They believed it had only to find there were humans infected with the vemus virus that did not turn into monsters. These hybrid humans were still shunned by the non-infected humans and were forced to leave off Earth in space stations or on hollowed out asteroids. These people were called “Spacers” and were not very well tolerated by the small number of humans left on Earth.
And that small number was significant. From a population of billions, the Earth now only held a population in the thousands. Life had regressed since there weren’t enough people to run a modern civilization. Disease and lack of food and common goods were prevalent as well as a lack of a central government. When the New Earth colonist returned to Earth, they began offering their help to all that was willing to take it, including the Spacers.
New Earth scientists had found that the vemus virus has mutated into a less deadly form which humans could handle only there were certain side-effects. Most of the hybrid humans were dealing with strange and new powers not found in normal humans. Some were unfortunately changed with deformities, but others were given the ability to do things normals humans could not. Ethan Connor had been in a terrible accident while piloting one of the CDF starfighters. He crashed and was on the verge of death when a young woman hybrid found him and used her power to bring him back from the verge of death. Only problem was, Ethan now was a hybrid himself.
The CDF didn’t know what to do with Ethan. They wanted to thoroughly examine him to make sure he wasn’t a threat to others since that’s what the Vemus of the past certainly were. Ethan only knew that he was still human but also had some special abilities now. He could run far longer than ever, hold his breath far longer and didn’t tire as easily as he had before his conversion. He knew why Cynergy, the hybrid, had saved his life and now he felt a connection to her that he hadn’t felt with any other person. He didn’t resent what she had done, but was troubled since his career with the CDF seemed to be at an end. They simply didn’t trust a hybrid human.
So, it had been something of a concern with Ethan as to how the vemus virus started and why. He was determined to find out. He was assigned a mission to fly a combat shuttle with a platoon of Marines to Mars. They were going to investigate the possible site where the Vemus might still be hiding. Flying a combat shuttle was a far cry from flying a Talon V starfighter, but if this was what he had to do to at least do something, Ethan was all for it.
On Mars, they did find evidence of Vemus and even were attacked by a relatively small group of starving Vemus. While the platoon was exploring one site, Ethan went to another potential site and found a laboratory that seemed to have be conducting some kind of experiments with the vemus virus. But before he could find out anything about this laboratory, he had to get back and help the platoon escape from the Vemus they had located. Once the combat shuttle and the platoon were clear of the planet, the CDF took steps to nuke the entire area killing any possible vemus contamination and any possible research into the vemus virus work that was done on Mars.
Yet, Ethan wasn’t done with what he had found. He was determined to find out how the vemus virus started, where it came from and if human scientists had made it any worse then it was with their melding. This could definitely see the end of his CDF career, but it’s possible General Connor Gates might step in and help in his endeavor.
So, an interesting story and one that shows how a series can continue by writing about the children of the original main characters. I still wonder how much longer can this series continue since it has left the New Earth colony and even that colony is not the only human colony in space. I guess we’ll see if there is another book. It is not identified on Amazon as of this review.