The saga of General Connor Gates and now his Son Major Ethan Gates continues and may go on forever! That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but General Gates really needs to take a long break and try to stay home for a while! But, it seems like he’s always in the middle of everything and that’s how it’s going right now. A ship, the CDF *Pathfinder*, that had been under repair at a research station near New Earth. They were working on the I-Drive which was very experimental to begin with when it suddenly malfunctioned and blew the ship and everyone in it five-thousand light years away from New Earth. Now they were trying to get back but there were complications.
While trying to fix the I-Drive they met the Aczar, a race of aliens that also knew about the Phantoms. Now the Phantoms are another mysterious race of aliens that so far have only conversed with Connor Gates. Why is unknown, but he’s the only one they desired to talk to and they did that very infrequently. Yet, the Aczar civilization had captured a Phantom and were using him to further their civilization. Salpheth was the captured Phantom and he was interesting to Connor Gates since his kind had to Connor that their involvement with finding the Vemus wasn’t going to be very successful. In fact, the Phantoms had told Connor that humans needed to stop trying to find the source of the Vemus because humanity wasn’t strong enough to defeat the Vemus once they found them. Connor knew that wasn’t exactly true since they had encountered the Vemus on Earth and had in fact destroyed the Alpha that had infected the planet. So, Connor was at least hoping that Salpheth would help these humans to find their way back home. Did he have any advanced knowledge about the I-Drive that could get them back home. And if he did, would he share that knowledge.
Meanwhile, Major Ethan Gates, Connor’s Son, was out exploring the galaxy in his first command ship, the *Ascendant*. Aboard the*Ascendant* were a mix of military and civilians, Most of the civilian were scientists keen on finding any leads that might reveal the home system of the Vemus. One of the civilian scientists was Cynergy, Ethan’s wife. Both Ethan and Cynergy were hybrids, a combination of human and Vemus. No one was sure exactly what that meant, but so far, these hybrids were able to manage and control their Vemus side that actually helped them live. When Ethan allowed his Vemus side to arise, he became almost super-human and had used this ability to get out of some pretty tight spots early in his career. But, there was a downside to being a hybrid. It seems that they could be affected by Vemus Alphas if they came near one. So far, they hadn’t found any evidence of the Vemus on this mission, but that was about to change.
So we have to story-lines going on involving Connor Gates and one involving Ethan Gates. While Connor has had his share of troubles over his seeming long career and life span and had the experience to work his way through those setbacks, Ethan wasn’t as nearly experienced. Still, Connor Gates and his small contingent of humans were thrown five-thousand light years away from home with no known way to get back. They were lucky the I-Drive hadn’t simply exploded, but after its recent event, it was now draining power at an alarming rate. There was no way this I-Drive had enough power to get them home and to make things worse, they had no clue as to where they were!
Ethan’s problems didn’t really start until his ship found the remnants of a huge battle between an unknown alien fleet and what seemed to have been a Vemus Alpha starship. He wanted to be very cautious about approaching anything having to do with the Vemus, but for some reason, the other hybrids aboard his shipped seemed very agitated. They wanted to go directly to the huge Vemus starship not even knowing if it was dead or not. Ethan had told them no, they were taking things slowly and that’s what they did until the hybrid humans aboard the *Ascendant* stole a shuttle and took off directly towards the Vemus starship. His wife, Cynergy, was one of those involved in the treachery and they all were going to have to pay a price. This was almost equal to mutiny!
These stories are always well written and very detailed. I don’t know how long Connor Gates has been alive and I don’t remember the humans of New Earth developing and life extending processes but he’s been around for a long, long time and for most of this time, he’s been in the military! I think it’s time he retire and his Son, Ethan could carry on the Connor tradition. But, we’ll see what happens in the next book which interestingly has not been identified yet. I’m sure one will be forthcoming for sure!
==[Note: As of 12/03/2023, this will not be published on Amazon since I have been banned from posting reviews for some unknown reason. Once the ban is lifted, assuming it does get lifted, I’ll go back and post this to Amazon.]==