In a futuristic military adventure a recruit goes through the roughest boot camp in the universe and into battle with the Terran Mobile Infantry in what historians would come to call the First Interstellar War
This is the epic saga of an earthling, Valentine Michael Smith, born and educated on Mars, who arrives on our planet with "psi" powers--telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis, and the ability to take control of the minds of others--and yet with complete innocence regarding the mores of man.
Without warning, giant silver ships from deep space appear in the skies above every major city on Earth. Manned by the Overlords, in fifty years, they eliminate ignorance, disease, and poverty. Then this golden age ends--and then the age of Mankind begins....
Only the best and brightest -- the strongest and the most courageous -- ever managed to become Space Cadets. They were the elite guard of the solar system, accepting missions others feared, taking risks no others dared, and upholding the peace of the solar system for the benefit of all. But before Matt could earn his rightful place in the ranks, his mettle would be tested in the most severe and extraordinary ways -- ways that would change him forever but would still not prepare him for the alien treacheries that awaited him on strange worlds far beyond his own.
A disease of unparalleled destructive force has sprung up almost simultaneously in every corner of the globe, all but destroying the human race. One survivor, strangely immune to the effects of the epidemic, ventures forward to experience a world without man. What he ultimately discovers will prove far more astonishing than anything he'd either dreaded or hoped for.