When Mark and Heather Smythe saved Earth from the conquest-hungry Kasari Collective, they thought their work was done. But the world’s vast new government continued its quest to make extraterrestrial contact. And now, as a new gateway is activated to welcome the Kasari, whom world leaders take to be benefactors, only the Smythes stand a chance of countering their planet’s invasion and subjugation by a race of ruthless conquerors.

Years after their failed first mission, the Kasari have returned, bearing irresistible promises while concealing insidious plans to enslave humanity. But not if the Smythes—along with fearless CIA agent turned mercenary Jack Gregory and his partner, Janet Price—can help it. From the world’s last stronghold, they take the fight to enemies both earthling and alien—even as their comrades-in-arms join the warrior Koranthians in battling the Kasari on a far-off planet. But the greatest danger lies within Earth itself, where an ancient artifact prepares to summon doom from another world.

Richard Phillips was born in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1956. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1979 and qualified as an Army Ranger, going on to serve as an officer in the US Army. He earned a master’s degree in physics from the Naval Postgraduate School in 1989, completing his thesis work at Los Alamos National Laboratory. After working as a research associate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, he returned to the army to complete his tour of duty. Today he lives with his wife, Carol, in Phoenix, where he writes science fiction thrillers—including The Rho Agenda series (The Second Ship, Immune, and Wormhole), The Rho Agenda Inception series (Once Dead, Dead Wrong, and Dead Shift), and The Rho Agenda Assimilation series (The Kasari Nexus, The Altreian Enigma, and The Meridian Ascent).