Jill Smith

Vashla's World Jill Smith

Throughout the Universe, Ancient Aliens travel the Grid, a slipstream wormhole-connected portal system. However, the descendants of the creators of the Grid have forgotten their shared heritage and some live by plundering, pillaging, and murdering.

Vashla is one such space pirate. She lives on her own planet, VaLinta. Her cousins, Zorn and Rakal, are estranged. Zorn rules over his polluted mining planet called Zamba with malice, cruelty, and careless disregard for his expendable workforce. Rakal now lives on Earth after partnering Tam, a dual-gender citizen. He's adopted a peaceful life, although always on guard to protect his human family from the threat of his cousins in space.

Gardt Ness lives on Ghaur, an overpopulated planet where the Government rules every aspect of the citizens' lives. Gardt, a trained space pilot who has returned from a failed mission, is now an outcast within his world community. As a non-citizen, he has only the right to live in the home he grew up in, tending the needs of his estranged wife, her new husband, and their family. Gardt wants to warn the people of Ghaur of the dangers in space. He fears the folly of a colonization program and is frustrated when his warnings are ignored.

Orthama is a dead planet with a scientific outpost space station orbiting it. The scientists are working to develop a breeding program to repopulate the dead world once it becomes habitable. The Elders on the space station research their records of the ancient past as they continue their experiments.

Zorn wants his cousin, Vashla, to be his partner, but when she rejects him in favour of Gardt Ness, he retaliates. Meanwhile, the reunion of Gardt with his former captor, Vashla, sets in place a chain of events that culminates in a battle between all five worlds - Earth, VaLinta, Zamba, Ghaur and Orthama - to survive against a common foe.