Well, Colonel Mateo Larra and company have been able to put back Joint Base Sagittarius Arch space station, but he and his crew have not been able to patch up all the human damage caused by the Kin attack. One such major damage done was to his XO, Lieutenant Colonel Hanif Najm who lost his wife in the destruction and damages. That she was found by Colonel Larra’s wife, Doctor Esme Larra and his son, did nothing to alleviate his feelings that Esme was somehow responsible for his wife’s death. She definitely wasn’t responsible. The XO’s wife had expired due to all the smoke and poisonous gas from the fires all around their quarters. Colonel Larra was hoping to help Lt. Col. Najm through this difficult time because he was a very good XO and a good person.
That was not the only problem he still faced. The Kin were the enemy that everyone on this side of the gate had to be aware of. And just recently, the Kin had been able to cross through the gate and almost attacked Joint Base Aperture Bravo. That base was the sister to the “Arch” and wasn’t supposed to be involved in this Kin war. Yet, somehow a Kin vessel had disguised itself and gotten through all the checks prior to its wormhole transit. But, his station and the other assets available to him had make short work of this Kin incursion. He had forwarded his report of the incident to Colonel Larra who was going to have to thoroughly review their vetting instructions for all ships transiting the wormhole. That was going to be a big job.
But the Kin were up to a lot of different things right now. They were bent on wiping out all organic life in the galaxy. These crystal entities thought themselves superior to any other specie and were determined to eradicate these inferior humans. One of their tools used recently were to copy or replicate captured humans and send them back to create confusion and destruction for the humans. It took a while for the real humans to recognize that some of their troubles were actually being caused by humans who should have been dead! One of the intelligence agencies aboard the Arch had found a possible link to where these fake humans were coming from. They wanted to follow this trail and see if they could stop the Kins dangerous infiltration methods. They already had a prisoner who knew where he had met up with a group of replicated humans and he was going to tell them where that place was.
Meanwhile, Haradum II (Harad) was a small mining planet about 550 light-years from the Arch. This day things were going pretty much as normal when the emergency alarms started blaring. It didn’t take long for most of the miners to head for their mines or secure bunkers. The people in the tiny settlements also had emergency bunker they also headed to. Most thought it might be a pirate attacks, but that was forgotten when the first crystal-like starfighters began shooting and bombing everything. It was soon apparent that this small mining world had drawn the attention of the Kin!
Obviously, the Terran Coalition wasn’t going to stand for this unprovoked attack on one of their colonies. The *CSV Thomas S. Gates* was closes to the colony so they were sent to make things right and report back to the *Eisenhower* battle group and Gen. Raylan. The *CSV Thomas S. Gates* was a cruiser and was accompanied by the frigate *Nietz* and the destroyer *Icarus*. What they find is going to become the focus of everything going on in the galaxy for now. It will draw everyone from all different places to this one battle. Even Colonel Larra is going to arrive aboard a very secretive starship. He’s going to be instrumental in the resolution of this situation, if he lives.
So, this story certainly doesn’t end as anyone would expect. Are the Kin ever going to be convinced that humanity deserves to exist just as much as they do? We’ll have to wait and find out in book 6, “Forward Shield”, now available on Amazon.
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[Note 1 (12/23/2025): I’m no longer associated with Amazon and will no longer provide any links to books from that website. You can usually find books that you like at your usual source.]
[Note 2: As of 12/03/2023, this will not be posted on Amazon since I have been banned from posting reviews for some unknown reason. ]