The Race

Title:	The Race
Cover Artist:	Don Semora
Genre:	Christian, Scifi, Survival, Adventure
Series:	The Offworld Chronicles
Publication Date:	August 2017
Media Types:	Print (paperback) and Ebook
ISBN:	978-1370361878 (ebook) 978-1940155449 (print)
Followed By:	Dragon's Gambit

The Race is book 1 in the Christian Survival Adventure series, The Offworld Chronicles and begins the story of Simon, Trevor, Aria, Birash, Yurg and Alex and their travels, adventures and experiences in the early parts of the race course that each of them are forced to travel along in their journey towards the end, freedom, and the opportunity to return home.

Synopsis

The story begins with a prologue where two CIA employees, Jack Lundy and an unnamed junior colleague, discuss the Terran 2 Project (aka the planet of Offworld), and the various groups involved in it, including Section 17 and the Alien Brotherhood, two parts of the main controlling organization known as the Syndicate that controls Offworld and the race that's at the center of it. After this brief introduction the story then moves over to begin the story of Simon who is the main character of the story. The scene opens with Simon sitting at his desk working late at his job as a Software Developer in a small Michigan software startup. After a quick bit of office banter, Simon closes down and leaves for the day, walking out of the office and into the parking lot only to unexpectedly find himself sitting in a small metallic cell in the reception center of the Syndicate on the planet of Offworld at the very start of the race.

After being snatched out of his cell and roughly treated by the strange, alien employees at the reception center, he's provided with some basic starting instructions, an initial selection of supplies, and then hurried out into the staging area that sits between the starting checkpoint of the race and the reception center itself. Simon quickly realizes that he's not on Earth anymore, and immediately goes into survival mode,learning everything he can about the race from the handy and informational race manual given to him as part of his initial list of supplies. During this period of time he meets a brash, arrogant, street smart kid from the South Side of Chicago named Trevor. After a brief and disrespectful conversation with Simon, the young man goes off on his own while Simon settles into his reading again. By late afternoon he stops reading, gathers his things, and begins the course. However, as he's entering the course, two of the demons from the Brotherhood take an unhealthy interest in him from atop the reception center, and seek to exterminate him before he can get anywhere. However, they are stopped by one of the senior Section 17 agents, advising that they should allow him to continue just like any other racer.

Simon continues hiking the rest of the day and eventually reaches the first checkpoint where he orders a poncho, then sits down for the evening, as it's growing close to sunset, and builds a fire. About an hour after dark, Trevor appears and takes up a place in the camp. The two talk briefly, and Simon even witnesses a little to Trevor, but the young man wants nothing to do with it. The two then fall asleep for the night. Simon wakes up the next morning to find that he's alone again as Trevor has gone on ahead of him already. The day's hiking is generally unadventurous, even though Simon finds himself thinking a LOT about things back home, as well as the trail ahead. That night, the same as before, Trevor joined Simon in his camp to share the fire and human company. This time though, Trevor chose to stay with Simon and become his traveling partner. However, due to Trevor's immaturity, caustic attitude and combative attitude, the two soon part ways. Simon then prays briefly for Trevor before focusing himself intently on the course and what he'll need to do to survive the entirety of the race.

The story then switches to Trevor for a time and explores the consequences of his poor attitude and the poor decisions he makes along the way. After a difficult night of sleeping, due to a heaven rain storm and cold evening air, Trevor awakes to find Simon camped out next to him with a pair of trovets roasting over a roaring campfire. Simon offers the young man one of them (he knew they'd meet again, so he'd gotten one for each of them) and the two then discuss several things, including Trevor's past, Jesus, Simon's faith, and more. At first Trevor reject's Simon's witnessing and the chance to be saved. But eventually, after thinking it over for part of the night, Trevor eventually accepts Jesus and becomes saved. After this Trevor begins to grow quickly in his faith. Trevor then opens up and reveals to Simon that he was an "Arranger", and also an enforcer from time to time. Simon then shared a bit of his history, including his childhood, his current employment as a software developer, his experience farming, and a brief summary of his adult career.

After some more talking, Simon then begins to instruct Trevor in the ways of woodsmanship, including how to start a fire. They then continue to hike the trail, moving from campsite to campsite while getting to know each other. Eventually they come up to a large, open prairie that begins where the woods abruptly ends. They stopped for a few days to prepare for the long trip across the prairie before continuing on again. Eventually, after a couple nights in the prairie, they come across Aria one night when she appears in camp, out of the darkness, and tries to steal Trevor's dinner. After a brief struggle she's knocked out, and then tied up, more for her protection than theirs. When she wakes up, Simon questions her about her actions, and then realizes she only did it because she was hungry. So he feeds her the rest of Trevor's stew, and then a ration pack and a can of juice. Once satisfied they begin to ask her about who she is, why she's there, and more. Eventually Simon offers her a place on his team, much to Trevor's consternation. However, Aria chooses to think about it, and then leaves. Even so, the two men pray for her. She returns the next morning and is generously offered breakfast, which she accepts gratefully, if not a bit to her surprise as she's never encountered kindness of this type in all her life.

The team then sets out across the prairie. However, part way across they encounter a powerful thunderstorm that threatens them. Simon and Trevor quickly take their ponchos and make an improvised tent, then hide inside it with Aria. The storm rages around them for nearly twenty minutes while the two men pray for protection and Aria sits between them in an absolute panic. Eventually it runs its course and the three of them step out into an amazing scene where they find themselves standing in the most unlikely of places. Namely, on a small island in a prairie of small, yet deep lakes that surround them on all sides, and were created when the oddly elastic floor of the valley sank, creating little pockets where the water gathered together. While Simon is cautious about this at first, Trevor dives in and explores them. Eventually Simon joins him, followed by Aria, where they frolic and play for a while. Eventually the water begins to drain out of these ponds, causing the floor of the prairie to rebound until it's completely flat and dry again. The team soon moves on again. Several days later the team reaches the end of the prairie and sets up camp along the edge of the woods where Simon and Trevor plan to go hunting for some of the local deer population, much to Aria's protest. But, when Simon explains the benefits of doing so, she relents, even though she still disagrees with them about doing it.

Simon and Trevor then go hunting, and eventually bring down a king buck via Simon's expert shooting. However, before the animal is completely dead, Trevor foolishly mounts it like a conquering hero and is then treated to the rodeo ride of his life. Eventually the deer goes down and Simon comes running over to Trevor where he fears he'll find the young man dead. Instead, he finds Trevor just fine, albeit trapped under the buck. Simon frees him and then the two of them take the deer back to camp where they butcher it out and begin processing the skin and meat, turning the latter into jerky for the journey ahead. Both Aria and Trevor then begin to learn a bit more of Simon's long, and storied history, including how he came by some of his numerous survival skills. Simon and Trevor then briefly talk about God, but Aria isn't interested. Trevor's a bit shocked and surprised at this, but chooses to follow Simon's lead on this. They spend a couple weeks in camp gathering more deer and supplies, tanning deer and trovet hides before resuming the trail. However, as they do, they're watched by several unsavory characters. Eventually they break camp and resume the trail. But, along the way, they realize how badly they need a bath. However, while the two men are all for it, Aria's a bit apprehensive about it, fearing that they might ogle her, or worse. Simon assures her all is fine and she can go alone, which she's, oddly enough, uncomfortable with.

The two men then decide to let her go first, alone, to the river to bath. She doesn't want to, but eventually agrees. But when she goes down to the river, before she's able to do more than dip her foot in the river, a pair of bandits come out of the woods and kidnap her. She cries out in terror which alerts the two men that something is wrong.