Escaped Germline soldiers need to be cleaned up, and Stan Resnick is the best man for the job—a job that takes him to every dark spot and every rat hole he can find. Operatives from China and Unified Korea are gathering escaped or stolen Russian and American genetics, and there are reports of new biological nightmares: half-human things bred to live their entire lives encased in powered armor suits. Stan fights to keep himself alive and out of prison while he attempts to capture a genetic—one who will be able to tell them everything they need to know about this new threat, the one called Project Sunshine. Chimera is the third and final volume of the Subterrene War trilogy, which tells the story of a single war from the perspective of three different combatants.

Exogene (n): factor or agent (as a disease-producing organism) from outside the organism or system. Also (slang): classified Russian program to merge protohumanoids with powered armor systems. Catherine is a soldier. Fast, strong, and lethal, she is the ultimate in military technology. She’s a monster in the body of an eighteen-year-old girl. Bred by scientists, grown in vats, indoctrinated by the government, she and her sisters will win this war—no matter the cost. And the costs are high. Their lifespan is short; as they age they become unstable and undergo a process called “the spoiling.” On their eighteenth birthday they are discharged. Lined up and shot like cattle. However, the truth is, Catherine and her sisters may not be strictly human, but they’re not animals. They can twist their genomes and indoctrinate them to follow the principles of Faith and Death, but they can’t shut off the part of them that wants more than war. Catherine may have only known death, but she dreams of life, and she will get it at any cost.

Germline (n): the genetic material contained in a cellular lineage that can be passed to the next generation. Also (slang): secret military program to develop genetically engineered supersoldiers.

One hundred years from now, Russia and the United States are at odds again. This time the war has gone hot. Heavily armored soldiers battle genetically engineered troops hundreds of meters below the icy, mineral-rich mountains of Kazakhstan.

War is Oscar Wendell’s ticket to greatness. A reporter for the Stars and Stripes, he has the only one-way ticket to the front lines. The front smells of blood and fire and death—it smells like a Pulitzer.

But Kaz changes people, and the chaos of war feels a bit too much like home. Hooked on a dangerous cocktail of drugs and adrenaline, Oscar starts down a dark road that he won’t be able to turn back from.