Star Patrol I

Book excerpt: STAR PATROL 1 Invasion of the Globes by J. A. Connell This is a tale of alien invasion set 300 years in the future. The story centers around 28 year old Doctor Samantha Wilson. Born and raised on one of Earth's colony worlds, she has taken a medical contract with the Star Patrol on one of the most distant colonies called Lastchance. The Invaders are silver spheres averaging thirty meters in diameter, and soon come to be known simply as Globes. Sweeping in from outside of Mankind's group of colony worlds in a cluster of more than 40,000, each Globe can discharge energy bolts capable of destroying Man's largest Starships. Having never encountered another alien race, humans are not prepared for space warfare, and major war on Mother Earth is a thing of the past. Weapons of mass and even minor destruction have been nearly eliminated. The men who first encounter the Globes discover that their apparently sole purpose is to infest planets with strange deadly creatures. Named for the thick mucus they can spray at an intended victim, they become known as Slimers. Slimers are voracious, fearless, nine feet long, and thoroughly lethal. A Slimer on the attack can not be turned away and is only interested in eating, anything that moves. Samantha arrives on Lastchance just ahead of the Globe invasion. Along with the helpless colonists she watches in fear as the Slimers devastate that primitive settlement and by shear luck becomes the only survivor of the Lastchance Colony. Later rescued by the crew of the Star Patrol's Starship Orion she unexpectedly winds up as Orion's Medical Officer. Samantha's view of the Starship crew, the Star Patrol, and even the Earth people themselves, is that of an outsider. She along with Orion's crew follow the invading Globes on a trail of infested and destroyed colonies that ultimately leads to Earth herself. Space battles with Globes, and planetary encounters with Slimers are all a part of the mix. Along the way Samantha finds lifelong friends and even love in places she never expected to be, even in her wildest dreams. Although it is a story of alien invaders, the Earth and it's colonies, the thinly stretched Star Patrol, and human conspiracies. It is ultimately Samantha's story.