Shards: Book Three

A sudden, rending scream from the depths of hell made even these seasoned veterans jerk and twirl toward this terrifying, unknown enemy. Aaron’s high-speed slug gun had the piercing screech of a banshee as he stood there – his legs so immobile despite the wicked recoil that they seemed bolted to the stone floor.

For twenty years Earth has been exploring the stars using faster-than-light stardrives whereby a manmade black hole pulls the ship through space. Dangerous to themselves and everything in the vicinity, the twenty-four starships, led by the flagship Horizon, have opened up new worlds to colonize.

Sixteen years have passed since Promise Tide and Chrissy DuPries successfully forged the many factions of resistance forces into a cohesive unit, capable of facing – perhaps one day defeating – The Unbreathable, a force of evil attempting to control Earth’s societies through the ubiquitous, all-powerful NATech conglomerate.  Things have not gone well. 

Science. Magic. Both sources of unimaginable power. All that prevents ultimate control, ultimate power, is that science and magic do not exist in equality in the same dimension.  Until now. 

  The Terran/Martian Wars are over. Earth has been devastated by sixteen years of asteroid bombardment. Civilization on Mars is gone. Civilization on Earth is teetering on the brink. Three hundred and eighty-five million dead. Billions more emigrated to other planets.

John Wyeth was a successful man. At nineteen, he graduated at the top of his class at a respected university. By the age of twenty-two, he had survived three brutal years of warfare, serving as commanding officer for a behind-the-lines reconnaissance platoon.