A jump gate travels from an unknown point to one of Earth's Lagrange points. A Gluten freighter emerges from the gate and trys to start trading with Earth. Unfortunately, Earth has nothing of value to trade with.
Until Tyler Vernon (an underemployed IT guy working as a super market stock boy and going through a divorce) figures out that the aliens like maple syrup - a lot. Matter of fact, it is an extreme intoxicant that makes aliens almost too drunk to negotiate. Tyler manages to get his hands on a pickup truck full (6 fifty gallon drum barrels) of maple syrup and trade it for twice it's weight of atacirc (atomic level circuitry). A single atacirc chip is about the size of a matchstick head. It has near infinite parallel processing capabilities and 6 petabyes of RAM on board. Tyler sells the atacirc to Cisco, IBM, Intel, and big pockets computer businesses the next day to become an overnight billionaire.
All good - almost.
Until the Horvath (another group of aliens) come through the gate, destroy three major cities by dropping bombs on them, and demand "tribute" (all the worlds gold) to avoid strikes on other cities.
Tyler comes up with a "business venture" - orbital smelting.
To make the business work, he has to:
- select the correct size and type of asteroid (some are rocky, some are metal, some are composite, et cetera)
- create lots of mirrors (on Earth) and attach jet packs with guidance packages (he buys them from the Gluten)
- pay the Gluten to transport the mirrors from Earth to outer space
- position the mirrors around an asteroid
- reflect sunlight onto an asteroid to heat it up
- set the asteroid to spinning
- centrifugal force separates the metals into layers of an onion
- cut away the junk and
- sell the good stuff (in place) to the Gluten - avoiding "taxation" by the Horvath.
The FBI is smarter and sees the potential.
At the same time, the US Military (through skunkworks) is working on a "fighter" to take out the Horvath cruiser. The "fighter" is barely space worthy, untested, and has a untested weapons system. The FBI puts Tyler and the military together. Tyler learns that the "fighter" has issues. It wont fly. No one knows if the weapon will work. The first time it is test flown, it crashes horribly. The "fighter" is totaled. He lends his magic touch to the project creating a new "fighter" out of a decommissioned SR-71 Blackbird.
In a "Hail Mary", the military "fighter", Tyler, and the space mirrors attack the Horvath. Miraculously, they win. This is all in the first 4 chapters of the first book - Live Free or Die.
The action continues throughout the book and the rest of the series.
- Live Free or Die (ISBN 1-4391-3332-8) sample chapters
- Citadel (ISBN 1-4391-3400-6) sample chapters
- The Hot Gate (ISBN 1-4391-3432-4) sample chapters
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