Fidelis

A. E. (After Earth) 170Mankind stretched out its wings, soaring to planets previously beyond reach. Now settlements grow under distant suns, with people recruited in clusters from every nation & language group. Populous nations, like China & India, are not the only ones with colonists; France, Iceland, Haiti, all have colonies dominated by their emigrants; Gargantua, Klettur, and Atribbe. Bellerophon, settled by Francophones, will soon have a population of one billion, and it's only been a colony for fifty years. The Royal Windsors of Alpha want Bellerophon for their empire, since it's perfect for growing the highly addictive drug Crax. They may have stopped their blatantly military land grabs, but they explore other methods, like using retired Marines in drug gangs. On Bellerophon, tragedy strikes the twelve year old Yves Moutine. Seeing his father killed by Crax smugglers, fleeing into the jungle during rainy season, conducting guerrilla war against the gangsters, Yves finds out his dad was a New Outreach Naval Intelligence spy. Mei Hsiu Chen, chasing down rumors, is interested in the boy's dad. Something was once found by the elder Moutine, on a spy mission with the mother of his old pal Zheng He. Here Mei has discovered a planet from which his Inner Worlds Federation can be launched, not as merely a drug production center, but as part of a galaxy-wide criminal empire. Then, Zheng is sent by Naval Intelligence, to see why signals from Pierre Moutine have stopped coming. Whether the fate of the galaxy will be determined by one of these vast forces, or by a twelve year old child, a Galactic Catholic priest, or an Icelandic Crax addict named Wren, is the real question on Bellerophon.