The Invisible Enemy

On a barren desert world in the Hyades, the warship Nesbitt hovers over the wreck of the Esther, whose eight-man crew vanished without a trace. Computer specialist Harley Allison is already at odds with Commander William Warrick, a hard-bitten officer who distrusts machines, instinct, and anyone who depends on them. But the planet has already swallowed three ships and twenty-four men, and Warrick is determined to uncover whatever unseen force is killing his crews. As treadwagon teams fan out across the yellow sand, the search becomes a study in fear and frustration. No blood, no bodies, no explanation appears—only silence, a strange landscape of hollow-grained sand and scattered vegetation, and the mounting certainty that something is watching from beneath the surface. When one unit disappears, then another man flees in panic and dies, Allison's computer calculations begin to point toward a horrifying truth Warrick refuses to accept. The final revelation comes too late: a military funeral for the dead triggers a massacre when blood draws monstrous white predators from the sand. In this tense science-fiction survival mystery, distrust of technology, military pride, and the terror of an invisible enemy collide with deadly force. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.