Flight of the Armada

Flight of the Armada combines science fantasy, romance, action/adventure and sly humor to create a multi-generation epic. The survivors of the war-devastated world of Thuringa send six scouts to Earth in 1961 in search of a resting place between the fleet and their destination world Farcourt. Earth is inside the area called "The Unknown Territory" by the Stellar Council Worlds, a confederacy to which Thuringa once belonged. As their first Earthian contact, Michael Sheldon tries to reconcile the needs of the newcomers with the reality of advanced beings living in rural Oklahoma. Crown Prince Stuart Phillipi is responsible for his scouting party and tasked with establishing an outpost and make contacts. Caution prevents them from publicly revealing their origins. His impetuous twin brother Prince Darien must learn humility when he works alongside Earthians, without his royal title to shield him as would be usual. Their sister Princess Carrol is the scouting party's medical officer, caught up in a romance with their common born mechanic Gareth Duncan. Gareth is an extraordinary commoner, and his genius is needed in every aspect of the scouting mission to the point of exhaustion. Instead of his usual role as royal guard, Glendon Garin is tasked with learning about Earthians firsthand, a daunting job for such a proper nobleman steeped in years of royal duty and protocol. Aquatic Lord Brent Ardenne must hide his gills and webbed fingers from Earthians, but he revels in a world teeming with oceans, sea creatures - and lots of tasty potables! The Thuringi have lemon-yellow eyes and stand over six feet tall, which makes it hard for them to assimilate easily with their neighbors in Oklahoma, America. Through their Universal Translators, Thuringi voices sound like patrician Englishmen, appropriate for these very foreign visitors. With Michael unable to be on hand at all times, it is largely up to the Thuringi to learn about American/Earth culture. Flight of the Armada is the first of a twenty-six book series exploring the Thuringi culture and other members of the Stellar Council. Book Zero, Fields of Fire, is the prequel chronicling the period during and after the escape from Thuringa leading up to the events of Flight. When tragedy looms later in the series, the peripatetic Thuringi must do everything in their power to survive and reach Farcourt for the future of their race.