Jack Commer, Supreme Commander

Jack Commer, Supreme Commander of the United System Space Force, leads a peace mission in his flagship Typhoon II to end the war with the fascist Alpha Centauri Empire. After an engine explosion strands the ship four months from its destination, the Typhoon encounters a derelict spaceship, but its nine rescued refugees are insolent and uncooperative, and they proceed to brainwash most of the crew into worship of the Alpha Centaurian Emperor. A month and a half later, all but three of the crew have been Converted. Jack has demanded daily diary entries from the remaining crew so that he can pinpoint the exact moment of their Conversion, and he, his estranged wife Amav, the emotionally damaged twelve year-old Bobby, and recently Converted ship's engineer Phil Sperry write their final, fully honest entries before the ship is captured by Centaurian stormtroopers and Jack and Amav are sent to be tortured on a barren planet. Michael D. Smith was raised in the Northeast and the Chicago area, then moved to Texas to attend Rice University, where he began developing as a writer and visual artist. His Jack Commer, Supreme Commander and Supreme Commander Laurie science fiction series are published by Sortmind Press. In addition, Sortmind Press has published Smith's literary novels Sortmind, The Soul Institute, CommWealth, Akard Drearstone, Jump Grenade, Asylum and Mirage, The University of Mars, and Zarreich. Smith's web site, sortmind.com, contains further examples of his novels and visual art, and he muses about writing and art processes at blog.sortmind.com. With the shocking suicide of the Typhoon I, the most powerful military spaceship ever built, the four Commer brothers are reduced to two. After the horrors of the Final War, the evacuation of Earth, and an unexpected conflict with native Martian terrorists, is eldest brother Jack really fit to lead the United System Space Force? Yet despite stress bordering on hysteria he always seems to come up with the proper solution. Shy with women but easy with command as opposed to his passionate, guilt-ridden brother Joe, when promoted to Supreme Commander Jack passes over numerous ambitious admirals and holds onto power for decades with the newest rejuvenation technology. But has he ever really recovered from the responsibility of overseeing forty years of futile time war with the Alpha Centaurians?