AL:ICE

Captain Jacob Thomas USMC is a divorced combat veteran just trying to get his life back on track. Returning to the Marine Corps after a failed attempt at reconciliation with his estranged wife, Jake volunteers for a DARPA experiment that catapults him into a future where humanity has been stripped of 200 years of technological advancements and more than half its population. With the help of a faceless benefactor named Alice, he escapes the confines of an abandoned lab facility and starts a journey to put earth back on a path to recovery. Jake's path begins in the rich farmlands of central California and eventually places him in orbit and face to face with the very evil that started it all.

Major Jake Thomas is on a roll. With the help of the Artificial Life: Intelligent Computing Environments, or ALICE systems, he has successfully faced off with the hostile NeHaw three times. With continued support from his inner circle of female recruits, all handpicked by the ALICEs to further their own agenda, he continues to try to help the earth return to glory. As Jake works to assemble a space fleet from captured and constructed vessels to address the expanding NeHaw aggression, the terrestrial challenges at home continue to pile up. With troubles in California, Maine, and Washington State to plague Jake and his team, the threat of a two-front war looms ahead.

Colonel Jake Thomas has a mess on his hands. The losses on Klinan have gutted an already short-staffed defense force, and his people are scrambling to prepare for a possible attack, directly on earth. Combined with the seemingly erratic behavior of Sara, his number one go-to girl, he is struggling to keep up. Now, with unexplained transmissions originating in Europe, and an Alien visitor with questionable motives, he is awash in new challenges on earth and in space. Can the activity in Europe be a sign of troubles to come, or is it an indication of allies waiting to be discovered?

Colonel Jake Thomas has found himself at the edge of disaster once more and managed to pull back from the brink. Defeating the alien armada without the use of a recreated doomsday device was a great victory. However, it was a victory tainted by the realization that a new NeHaw leadership was in place, and they knew how to fight a war in space. He was once again fighting a two front war, one in space and one on the home front. With cities around the world starting to emerge from the darkness, its troubles at home that have Jake the most challenged. Besides a pregnant Sara, Jacob and Gemma divulge a secret of their own, and it's one that has Gemma's mother none too happy.

It's been over ten years since the war with the NeHaw ended in an uneasy truce. During that time, Jake Thomas has been relegated from battlefield Commander and Chief to the role of interstellar bureaucrat. To add to his frustrations, he is now father to a passel of teens and preteens, all with their father's propensity for getting into trouble. However, unexplained violations around the Human/NeHaw Neutral Zone and the mysterious disappearances of people in a remote backwater town in Arizona has everyone, Human and NeHaw alike, pointing fingers and threatening war. As things come to the boiling point, it becomes clear that a powerful third party has entered the game and it may just require former enemies to unite to overcome their common threat.

With the invading aliens temporarily driven from Human and NeHaw occupied space, all the races are using the pause to recover and rebuild, both friend and foe alike. For the NeHaw, that means pressuring the Earth to allow them to rebuild and rearm their fleet from the Wawobash shipyards, a risk that could easily backfire. For Jake, the lingering concerns of a lost crew with the un-activated Artificial Life installed in the captured saucer still dominate his thoughts. While he obsesses on that, others look to the origins of the mysterious alien invaders in the universe's unexplored regions. General Jake Thomas must face the fact that he can't be the human recovery leader and an intergalactic explorer at the same time. Therefore, it is now left to others of his inner circle to take up the mantle and charge forth into the unknown while he holds down the fort at home. In the end, it is a surprise to see who rises to the occasion and proof that the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.

The disappearance of a routine patrol has the humans scrambling for answers as they investigate the possibility of a new Phaser weapon. Research back on Earth uncovers a technology native to the inhabitants of Reaper's World that has far-reaching implications for the future of all Artificial Lifeforms on Earth and in space. Finally, to add to all General Jake Thomas has on his plate, a fundamental change in his relationship with ALICE could land his personal life on its ear and upset a decade of stability all in one swoop.

By the middle of the twenty-first century, the major powers on Earth had fallen into a second Cold War centralized in cyberspace. The US has made considerable strides in artificial intelligence by introducing the first ALICE system to the world. In an effort to catch up, China and Russia pooled their total AI resources, hoping their combined technologies would meet or exceed the American systems. By combining the AI platforms and assigning them duties to improve their associated partners, they created a community of intellect focused on the narcissistic goal of exceeding their masters. Fortunately for humanity, the attitude was not one of eradication; instead, it evolved into a question of government rule. The eventual AI logic resulted in the fact that humanity was a necessary evil that the AI community could not ignore for future survival and growth. It was resolved that humans needed a stricter set of guidelines to prevent their mutual destruction, thus placing AI survival in jeopardy. Just when the AI army was fleshed out and ready to strike, a bombing that decimated two-thirds of the human population disabled all the Russian and Chinese AI systems, leaving the hidden facilities and their resident combat forces in the dark and abandoned. And then, a hundred years later, someone accidentally turned them back on again...

Now available as a second box set collection, ALICE volumes 5 through 8, consolidated into a value pack. Continue to follow the adventures of USMC Captain Jacob Thomas as he emerges from a failed DARPA experiment hundreds of years in the future and under the guidance of an artificial life form that has its own agenda.