ACROSS ENEMY SPACE
The Alliance and the Combine have been at war for decades, fighting a grim battle of attrition in a conflict that knows no end. Now, aided by a mole at the very top of the Alliance chain of command, the Combine has stolen the initiative, outmaneuvering the Alliance fleet and thrusting ever deeper into Alliance territory.
Newly promoted General Torrance, Commander in Chief, Alliance Air and Ground Forces, is charged with stemming the tide – halting the string of defeats and checking the enemy’s advance into the Alliance heartland. But before he can take the fight to the enemy, he must first do battle with the enemy within – the appeasers and defeatist elements within his own political hierarchy. And while the fleet makes its stand, Director of Intelligence Brigadier Faulkner has his own vital mission. He must deploy his counter-intelligence assets to search out the mole and destroy the enemy spy ring before it can fatally damage the Alliance cause. With both sides seeking the advantage, the very future of the Alliance is left hanging in the balance. Only one man, the bravest of the brave, can break the deadlock by travelling across enemy space in search of new found allies. But is it a lost cause? Is it already too late to save the Alliance? Indeed, is it even real? |
About Across Enemy Space
Across Enemy Space is my third novel. My previous two offerings, The Blunt End of the Service and The Blunt End of Oblivion, were written primarily as science fiction adventure stories, though both included elements of crime and hopefully, touches of humor. One reviewer described the books as ‘lite sci-fi’, a label which would seem to fit quite well.
Across Enemy Space began life as a short story and was an attempt to write a harder brand of science fiction. As such, the story is set in a universe of total conflict.
It seemed a natural progression.
Born little more than ten years after the end of World War II, my childhood was punctuated with a plethora of war movies typical of the era. As often as not, the main characters were played by actors such as John Wayne or Robert Mitchum if the movie was American, or perhaps John Mills or Richard Todd if it happened to be British (I’m afraid you’ll need to be of a certain age to understand). There would be certain differences, of course – mostly revolving around cultural stereotypes – but the essential ingredients would be the same: a display of bravery, self sacrifice and honor as the principal characters battled to purge the world of tyranny and oppression, occasionally dying a hero’s death in the process.
Perhaps not the good, clean war it was often portrayed to be, it was nonetheless a righteous war – and undoubtedly a necessary one, fought for the richest and noblest of ideals. Or at least, that’s how it seemed to an impressionable, young teenager, a teenager who quickly became fascinated by war and all the hardware that it spawned; the fighter planes, the bombers, the battle-tanks, the warships, the guns, rockets, missiles and bombs…
But life is rarely so simple, and as I grew older and approached adult maturity, the newsfeeds presented first the daily horrors of Vietnam, then later the Arab/Israeli conflicts, the Falklands War, the Rwandan genocide… the list goes on… and on… and on.
And along with it all came a fresh brand of war movie, darker, more brutal, and as Hollywood evolved, unquestionably more authentic; Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket and somewhat later, Saving Private Ryan, a film which held very little back from the viewer – the unadulterated blood and gore a very distant cry from the ‘little red badge of courage’ of years gone by.
When I began Across Enemy Space, I had it in mind to return to the simpler times of my youth, writing a tale where neither John Wayne nor John Mills would have felt out of place in one of the leading roles – assuming they would have been as content in the depths of space as they were on the Normandy beaches. That’s not to say that it was my intention to portray war in simple comic book terms. It wasn’t, but at the same time I wanted my heroes to be unmistakably heroic and my villains to be unspeakably villainous.
Well, that was the plan...
Some years ago, my mother was diagnosed with an illness serious enough to necessitate a number of consultations with a specialist at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham, UK.
One of the largest and most modern hospitals in Britain, the Queen Elizabeth enjoys a fine reputation. Apart from providing a whole range of services for the local population, it has the biggest organ transplant program in Europe and houses the largest single floor critical care unit in the world.
The Queen Elizabeth Hospital is also home to the Royal Centre for Defense Medicine, the primary receiving unit for military patients from overseas. One of the main functions of the unit is the care of military personnel injured in conflict zones. This of course includes servicemen injured in Iraq and Afghanistan, a great many of them victims of improvised explosive devices.
With typical pragmatism, my mother faced an uncertain future in the same way that she faced everything else in her life – with courage and dignity. Always uncomplaining, she had nothing but the utmost praise for the hospital staff.
There is, however, one observation that she made during one of her visits to the Queen Elizabeth, and something that has stayed with me to this day. On that particular visit, she encountered a group of ex-servicemen who were undergoing rehabilitation at the RCDM. She said that it broke her heart to see so many young men – young men in their prime – victims of such grievous, life changing injuries. She worried also about how uncertain their futures must have been.
My mother spent her late teens working shifts in a munitions factory in the British midlands. Like all British women after 1941, she was called up for war work and spent the rest of the conflict producing anti aircraft artillery shells.
As World War II ended, I doubt she would have imagined that in her twilight years she would be witnessing the return of yet another generation of shattered servicemen and women.
It seems that there was no such thing as a war to end all wars. Perhaps there never will be, which is why Across Enemy Space turned out the way it did.