The Bastion Prosecutor - Episode 3
A J Marshall
eBook
(MPress Books Limited, Aug. 21, 2012)
The Bastion Prosecutor – Episode 3 Futuristic novel “The Bastion Prosecutor” is about man’s legacy on planet Earth. It is about where our ancestors may have come from as much as where faith dictates we did. It is a glimpse into a future. It is about the antagonism between learning and belief; science and religion; a dilemma that has risen and waned since the earliest civilisations. It is about conviction, not just in accepted ideals but also the unacceptable.“The Bastion Prosecutor” is about the frontiers of space. Man’s inevitable pursuit of the unknown and his innate necessity to colonise; driven in this case as much by environmental calamity as by instinct. It is about technology and the misuse of knowledge.“The Bastion Prosecutor” is about high adventure and love, about deceit, greed and the unexpected. It is about a tapestry of secrets where threads pass from the past to the future. Finally, it is about hope.“The Bastion Prosecutor”, an epic trilogy – science fiction at its most believable. The premise:Whilst inside the Great Pyramid of Khufu, Richard Reece begins to realise that his beautiful guide Madame Vallogia and her unlikely aide Asharf Makkoum, have hereditary roles as mysterious as the monument itself. He is unaware that mechanical predators similar to those that sealed the entrance to the Great Pyramid still stalk him and with a directive to interrogate and then eliminate. After a near-death struggle, Richard and his party escape the mausoleum and begin to assimilate long lost and seemingly meaningless clues that coax him south; first to the deserted Valley of the Kings near Luxor in southern Egypt – more particularly the tomb of the Pharaoh Rameses II – and then, after another narrow escape, to the ancient kingdom of Kush – a region now known as the Sudan. During a briefing in Khartoum, given by his MI9 controller, Richard is confronted by more evidence of wayward and illegal computer programming: an astonishing, interactive, hologram. The encounter confirms the existence of the so called "Ark of the Light" and directs him east to Eritrea and the ancient and long forgotten seaport of Adulis. Meanwhile Tom Race, who is on board the Federation Ship Enigma for the Kalahari crystal retrieval flight to Mars, has forged a dubious alliance with EMILY, the ship's autonomous and self-aware systems computer – a relationship based on misconstrued human traits. After an incredible voyage through the solar system and with the ship subsequently established in orbit around the red planet, Tom visits Osiris Base – only to find that both the consignment of crystals and the flight log are missing. A secondary mission to explore the pyramidal structures on the Plane of Elysium sees an attempt on Tom's life. By his own resourcefulness he survives and upon his return, he is able to point an incriminating finger at the base Security Officer. This, in turn, leads to the recovery of the lost items. Along with the cargo, Tom reluctantly agrees to return the devious Security Officer to Earth. EMILY, however, sees opportunity in this incarceration.