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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: A sweeping military space adventure from a talented new author in the tradition of Midshipman's Hope and On Basilisk Station. Scott St. Andrew is a first year cadet at South Point Academy on Exeter, a rocky moon circling a distant colony planet. All he has to do is survive the toughest, most gruelling training program in the military. Then he'll be qualified to become an officer in the Guard Corps and be on his way off his filthy, poisonous planet and into the Terran Alliance elite. But Scott's chance of being the one in a thousand to escape the colonist destiny is rapidly disappearing. His genetic flaws (scars, no memory boosting or physical enhancement) make him one of the weakest in his squad and an inevitable target for ritual hazing. And events are about to spiral completely out of his control as the long simmering resentment between the colonial worlds and the rich Terran Alliance flares into open violence and rebellion. Now every soldier has to chose his side--and survive a hellishly accelerated training to join the deep space fighting before there is nothing left to fight for.

eBook Publisher: Harper Collins, Inc./HarperCollins e-books, Published: 2007
Fictionwise Release Date: May 2007

58 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats [Secure eReader (recommended)/Mobipocket/Microsoft Reader/Adobe - What's this?]: SECURE MOBIPOCKET FORMAT [579 KB], SECURE MICROSOFT READER FORMAT [698 KB] - Requires Microsoft Reader 2.1.1 for PCs, or Microsoft Reader 2.2.2 on Pocket PC 2002 handheld devices. Some older Pocket PCs can be upgraded. Learn More., SECURE EREADER (RECOMMENDED) FORMAT [400 KB], SECURE ADOBE FORMAT [1.8 MB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [823 KB]
Secure Adobe: Printing enabled, Read-aloud DISABLED
Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
Microsoft Reader ISBN: 9780061442247
Adobe Reader ISBN: 9780061442230
Mobipocket Reader ISBN: 9780061442223
eReader ISBN: 9780061442254

The rope snapped, and I plunged toward the canyon floor, some three hundred meters below.

Later on, Squad Sergeant Judiah Pope would learn that my rope had been cut, but his investigation into the incident would prove futile. Problem was, everyone in the Eighty-first Squad wanted me dead. Everyone except Dina, who felt more pity than resentment toward me, and my older brother, Jarrett, who would rather I experience pain. A whole lot of pain.

Pope had us ascending and rappelling a wall of mottled strata that South Point's first cadet corps had dubbed "Whore Face" since she offered so many good hand and footholds. The sergeant had, in all of his oratory splendor, told us, "You fuckin' first years ain't gonna get the luxury of no combat skins yet. You're gonna climb this face with ropes, then you're gonna come down this face with ropes. No superhero bullshit. Now I wanna hear you call out. On belay? On! Ready to climb? Ready! Don't let me see you screwin' up."

My father, a soft-spoken mineralogist who worked for the Inte-Micro Corporation, had always told me that only the ignorant resorted to profanity. I had never heard more swearing than I had during the end of my first year at the academy, even though most of the second, third, and fourth years I had met seemed pretty bright, and right there in the South Point Academy Code--a code none of us would dare break at the risk of immediate dismissal--was the admonishment to be at all times polite and courteous in our deportment, bearing, and speech. During my second day on Exeter, the rocky moon on which the ancient Racinians had chosen to build their facilities and on which Generals Ky-Tay and Jotanik of the Seventeen System Guard Corps had chosen to build South Point Academy, Pvt. Joey Haltiwanger had told me that the cadre was nervous over the mounting political tension between the colonies and the alliances. That's why everyone remained so intense, and that intensity grew even more fierce as we struggled to finish our first year's training and get onto the Order of Merit list for promotion.

)While that may have been true for some, Pope belonged to a camp all his own. The twenty-year-old second year stood a quarter meter shorter than most of us, had skin like singed rubber, and had a gap so large between his bottom front teeth that you swore someone had knocked out a tooth. For a long time I considered him no more than a disgusting little man, a military cliche overcompensating for the curses nature had wrought upon him.

So I was falling, watching the rope drop away from me, feeling the wind rush over my face and flutter through my black training utilities as though it wanted to morph them into a parachute. And there, down below, stood Pope, a diminutive grim reaper, scowling, pointing a finger at me, and though I couldn't hear him, I knew he swore at me. I gaped at him, my eyes burning, and thought of breaking orders and activating my skin to save myself. Finally, he hit me with the CZX Forty, and I came to a slow stop about a meter off the dusty ground.

For a little while there, I hadn't been sure if Pope would save me. The day before, my poor time on the confidence course put my squad in third place during the platoon competition.

"What're you doing, St. Andrew?" Pope asked, still aiming the CZX Forty's big barrel at me. He thumbed a button on the antigrav rifle's stock panel. I dropped to the dirt, tripped, and fell to my knees. His boot suddenly connected with my jaw, and I slammed onto my back. Exeter's pale blue sky scrolled by and got me dizzy. The majority of the cadets training on Exeter had been...