Hard Contact

The third book in the Web Shifter's Library series returns to the adventures of Esen, a shape-shifting alien who must navigate the perils of a hostile universe.

When the first astronauts of the Mars Colony returned to Earth, they brought a mysterious, metal box they had found half-buried in the red dirt, called the Mars Cube. The scientists assigned to uncover its secrets tested it, scanned it, tried to blow it up, and everything in between. Then they accidentally opened it. Biosafety level-4 laboratories, BSL4, hold the most deadly viruses on the Earth, and Juliet handled them daily. Her research at the CDC landed her a position on the Mars Cube Investigative Team in the world’s only BSL-5 lab.

Childhood therapy cured Stephen Fisher of disturbing visions and the delusion of having come from another world. But when his daughter obsesses over a star in the night sky, he fears that his genetic legacy may have burdened her with the same illness. His sanity is then shattered when he loses his child and the military abducts him claiming that she recorded a song broadcast from another world.

A troubled young woman is recruited by a race of ancient alien explorers to be their emissary to save the human race from extinction. The problem is that not everyone believes the world is doomed, and not everyone trusts the aliens' motives. Holly Burton will have to overcome opposition from world leaders, attacks by religious zealots, assassination attempts, intractable bureaucracies, and her own fears and doubts if she is to save the human race, not just from the coming apocalypse, but from itself.

Jack Kildare and the survivors of the Spirit of Destiny are stranded on Europa, while an alien planet-killer sets its deadly sights on Earth. But Jack's not done fighting. Not yet. Abandoned by mission control, the astronauts embark on a life-or-death pursuit of the alien behemoth that now has Earth in its crosshairs. The 400-million-mile running battle will test Jack and his ship to their limits. Yet the greatest danger lurks closer to hand, on board the Spirit of Destiny itself. Which ship will win the race?