Dying Embers by Betty Adams
Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Science Fiction
Release Date: August 19, 2015
Buy Links:
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Book Description:
Dying Embers tells the story of Drake McCarty; a sixteen year old boy with more than a few challenges in his life. As if it wasn't enough that he had begun seeing creatures that no one else could, he is suddenly thrust into the position of liaison to an alien race. He was just coming to understand that part of his life when he finds himself pronounced father to three Larian infants; embers.
They are injured, frightened, and carrying a pathogen with the capacity to destroy any technology it contaminates. Bole and the rest of the mature aliens are of limited help; exiled from their home-world following a bloody civil war, they arrived on Earth in a burned out spaceship just as the Cold War began, and for over half a century the military kept them a closely guarded, rather boring, and ultimately unproductive secret.
But when the other half of the conflict arrives, bent on continuing the war here on Earth Bole has no choice but to defend his new home and the family he has built here, leaving Drake to tend to the embers on his own. But Drake has other allies; a family with roots that stretch back into antiquity, and a reach that spans the world. They in turn know beings native to Earth, but far more alien than any of the Larians; creatures that hold no love for the species that they see as invaders, but might hold the key to his children's very survival.
“Was it really necessary to be that harsh?” Sever asked Healer as he turned to respond to yet another indicator on the main computer. Healer spun around, ready to lash out at the assassin, but stopped himself. He blinked his eyes for a moment and cleared his CPU.
“Sever,” he finally said, and the weight of all the deaths he had witnessed across the bitter civil war seemed to weigh in his tone, “if I were back on Lar with the full resources of the Imperial Cavern of Science, there would still be next to nothing I could do for those embers. Here…with this?”
His hand swept out to indicate his sparse lab and jury-rigged composite of human and Larian technology. “It would be far crueler to keep hopes up.”
The meaningful look Healer was giving him caused the assassin to tense defensively. He glanced to the side to make certain that O’Beirne was occupied. “Did you want me to take over the task for you? As I am so much better at administering cruelty than you?”
