When former soldier Everett Cole signed on to help colony planets prepare for joining the Federation, his employers were vague about his duties and the allowed methodology. Reservations increased when he met his partner, Edgar Millen, an enigmatic man with a penchant for violent solutions and a fetish for the mythology and language of the American Wild West. It wasn’t until they reached the colony world of Astrild, 52 light years from Earth, that Cole learned he and Millen were agents, troubleshooters, hired guns among other labels. Their first mission was free the remote town of Justice from the control of a vicious strongman. Unbeknownst to them, they were about to step on the tentacles of an interplanetary conspiracy.
Unconnected lives intersecting in a bleak setting. Nothing will ever be the same.
Humanity lurches into an uncertain future, dismissive of warning signs. Only the most naïve believe humanity will step back from the brink. Yet, in a place that doesn’t exist, a riddle, puzzle, hope, fear, danger, salvation—all come together.
Zach Marjek has faced death in the far corners of the Earth . . . and survived where others failed. He is about to be thrust into an unimagined situation. Jaded mercenaries, an Inuit wanderer, a murderous Yupik, a young mother, a video game designer, a retired general, a new president, a Chinese marine, mathematics prodigies: these and others whose lives and fates will come together to revolve around a mystery whose consequences could range from disaster to salvation.
As the mystery unravels, a danger unbeknownst to the players lurks and prepares to take what cannot be taken. Lives and the future hang by the thinnest of threads.
The novella An Ancient Enemy is set in the universe of Olan Thorensen’s Destiny’s Crucible series. When an alien spacecraft accidently destroys United Flight 4382, Twenty-seven passengers and crew were saved, but not to return to their previous lives. Five survivors found themselves on the planet Anyar, including Joseph Colsco, Mark Caldwell, and Heather Chen, but others had different destinations.