SYNOPSIS
SHORT VERSION:
AD 3619.
BioGorilla Leonardo Da Vinci is a cyborg with a gorilla body and a hybrid human/gorilla brain, genetically engineered by scientists and rendering AIs frantically building an army of superhuman warriors to repulse an invasion of Orphics – murderous spiderworm creatures threatening the realm of mankind and its Delph hexapod allies with elimination.
Created to be a lethal soldier, Leonardo is aware of his unique cyborg identity, begins to question who he is, and opts to free himself from his human masters. Aided by Mythica, an iconoclastic female BioGorilla who becomes his partner in crime, his quest for freedom in the midst of a brutal galactic war slowly evolves into an irresistible urge.
On a jungle world occupied by the enemy, Leonardo, Sargeant Miranda Bluefin and Lieutenant Gabriel Thorne must use their wits, intellect and Interstellar Marine training to stay alive when most of the rest of their squad is brutally attacked and killed. Bluefin, Leonardo’s closest human friend and confidant, has a Spec Warrior brother who’s been in combat for 10 years and has been incommunicado for most of that time. She’d love to talk to him, but can’t because she doesn’t know where he is and she’s stuck on a hostile, alien world. Thorne, a resourceful hunter who kills the enemy invaders with merciless precision, is haunted by the death of his family. He enjoys terminating the monsters who murdered them, until it becomes evident his furious obsession is consuming him. Yanked into an epic mission they can’t avoid, Leonardo and the two Marines must find a way to overcome their personal vexations and defeat the enemy to survive.
LONG VERSION:
AD 3619.
BioGorilla Leonardo Da Vinci is a cyborg with a gorilla body and a hybrid human/gorilla brain, geneticallyengineered by scientists and rendering AIs frantically building an army of superhuman warriors to repulse aninvasion of Orphics – murderous spiderworm creatures threatening the realm of mankind and its Delph hexapodallies with elimination.
Endowed with the strength of 20 men, a superior intellect and primitive survival instincts that centuries of evolution have erased from humanity, Leonardo’s superhuman powers are regulated by six spine-implanted nanosilicon chips. His human masters can turn off these chips with a killswitch, rendering him comotose if he refuses to follow orders or becomes threatening.
Based aboard stealthcruiser Darwin, Leonardo and a squad of elite ISMs (Interstellar Marines) have captured a rare Orphic spiderworm Queen above Callisto 6 – a remote wilderness world at the edge of the Eta Carina Nebula. During the past 10 years, the Orphics have destroyed Earth, 20 Earthling colony worlds, and 40 Delph planets. How can the onslaught be stopped? The tranquilized Queen, constrained in a Cryogenic BioModule, may hold the answers. Advanced thought-capture technology will be used by Science Officer Miranda Bluefin and her cohort, Science Officer Haley Pierce, to extract the secrets in her head.
Before that can happen, the Marine squad is forced to hide on inhospitable Callisto 6, where most of them are killed by violent weather and carnivorous indigenes. Leonardo and five surviving ISMs use every trick possible to stay concealed from the spiderworms occupying the planet. Meeting up with a Delph Spec Ops Group that’s been hiding undercover, they learn that a spacetime fissure above Callisto 6 allows the Orphic invaders to move seamlessly between Delph/human space and an alternate universe where their homeworlds are located. It becomes clear that the fissure must be destroyed to end the invasion.
Bizarre dreams about Mythica – a seductive, iconoclastic female BioGorilla – coincide with an unanticipated upgrade for Leonardo. The cyborg ape suddenly realizes he’s got massive powers extending far beyond the abilities programmed into his System Cognitivo Artificial by the dataprinces who monitor what he does via the chips embedded in his spine. He can read minds, has x-ray vision, and his physical strength has dramatically multiplied. What do these powers and his dreams involving Mythica signify? Who gave him these superior skills? The dataprinces? If so, why?
Stranded in the jungle with Gizmo, a talented Spec Warrior and one of the few surviving squad members, Leonardo is forced to rely on his newfound skills to elude the spiderworm swarms hunting for himself and Gizmo. When Mythica intervenes unexpectedly and saves him from an overwhelming attack, he realizes she’s no dream. The captivating female BioGorilla tells him about Primogenitor, a clandestine doomsday project activated by Earthling dataprinces to save humanity from destruction.
Leonardo learns that he and Mythica are 2 of 20 upgraded BioGorillas gifted with “novel genes” to perpetuate mankind. Convinced the war won’t end well, the dataprinces have programmed a top secret interstellar to convey the Primogenitor BioGorillas to a distant planet where they can reproduce and be free of killswitches and human oversight.
Finally reunited with Thorne, Miranda and Haley, Leonardo is able to interrogate the Orphic Queen. He realizes she’s a peaceful emissary, not an adversary. His intuitive dialogues with the spiderworm regent verify her amicable intent and uncover a major revelation. There’s an army of good spiderworms on Callisto 6 ready to battle the bad spiderworm army occupying the jungleworld. As the effort to close the fissure above Callisto 4 commences, and Leonardo uses his vastly advanced talents to end the enemy’s invasion, he wonders if he and Mythica can survive and prosper afterwards.
Will Delphs and humans accept BioGorillas into their society in the aftermath of a war that brought them all to the brink of extinction? Or is fleeing from those who can killswitch them off on a whim the only option for the BioGorilla superwarriors?