After just finishing a terrible book, reading this one was like sliding on smooth glass! Authors can really make their books easy to read or absolutely terrible; his one was one of the very easy one. Obviously, after sixteen books, I’ve read a few book in the First Colony series. I thought at one time that the series should probably be over but it certainly isn’t and probably, no will continue after this book. The story is probably going to be more focused on young Ethan Conner and his wife Cynergy, hybrid humans.
The New Earth exploration ship, *Reliant*, has started back home towards New Earth. They have a small fleet with a combination of civilian research ships and military escorts. In fact, most of the military ships have been revamped to accommodate an ever increasing civilian contingent. General Connor Gates is still in command of the expeditionary fleet, but he understands that a larger majority of the scientist/civilians aboard his ships want to continue exploring the universe as it unfolds to them during their journey back to New Earth. He also has the desire to explore the unknown, but he’s experienced enough to know that the unknown can become very dangerous very quickly. Right now, he feels that the people of New Earth need to sit down and form some kind of guiding committee to set some boundaries on future exploration missions. He doesn’t feel that they should be sending ships on long journeys without adequate protection. Defining adequate will be a problem because he knows a lot of scientists view the military as restricting. Still, they have to figure something out or people and ships will go wondering off into danger.
Now though, he’s going to transfer over to the *Challenger* commanded by Major Caleb Arvad. This ship is smaller than the *Reliant* and lacks some of the civilian amenities found on the *Reliant*, but his purpose in going over there is to study the ship and ensure it is functioning optimally. He doesn’t really think he’ll find anything unusual, but he’s also going to get a chance to spend some time with his Son, Ethan and his new wife, Cynergy. Both of these young people are a new breed of humans that have survived the Vemus virus and have turned into something know one knows quite yet. Cynergy was born into her hybridness while she saved Ethan’s life with a blood transfusion that also gave him the same condition she had. That was all covered in the last book.
Conner also wants to see how these next missions will also turn out in that the fleet is approaching some unknown systems that need to be explored. While they are not or at least should not be actively seeking the Vemus, if found, they need to be ready to protect themselves. Several ships are assigned different sectors with the idea that they should survey planets potentially capable of sustaining human life. They are also to report if they find intelligent life already flourishing on any planet. It is hoped that if another intelligent species is found they will be friendly or at least non-hostile. They certainly want to prevent any unexpected encounters with the Vemus.
Captain Ethan Connor is assigned the lead one of the away missions set to explore an icy planet that might have once had an intelligent civilization. Cynergy has developed a very advanced drone that can do a lot of the exploring without endangering any of the humans aboard the ships. They send the probe down to the planet and begin watching its video feed. While it doesn’t seem to find anything but a frozen ice planet, it does go down some deep ravines and beings seeing things that might indicate a former civilization. Then the drone is suddenly knocked sideways and falls into a vast underground body of water. It’s decided that a recovery team needs to go bring the drone back and see what could have knocked it down. This is when the weird stuff starts.
Of course Ethan and Cynergy are part of the recovery team since she built the drone and it’s Ethan’s mission. Once down on the ice plateau deep in the ravine, they begin to see what appears to be some kind of construction definitely made by an intelligent civilization. They breakup into teams to further explore these vast caverns hoping maybe to find some ancient technology. What they do find is something that didn’t want to find. It captures Cynergy and effects Ethan and other hybrids in ways they hadn’t expected. He’s separated from Cynergy, but that only causes more problems for him and some of the hybrids. General Gates has to send Ethan back down to the planet so he can find his wife if she’s still alive. More importantly is that the planet is changing the hybrids and some of them might not be able to change back. The biggest change is seen in Ethan. Connor Gates realizes he could lose his Son very soon, but he vows that’s that not going to happen.
This book was really interesting. You kind of expected them to find something that would cause problems but not just the way things turned out. General Connor Gates has been around a long, long time and he’s now beginning to realize that he’s not wanting to leave New Earth as much as he has. He’s thinking about passing the torch of leaderships to others, but who that will be will probably be explored in the next few books. Book 17 hasn’t been identified yet so it may be awhile before we read more.