Us Before Them (a Zach Croft Novel)

Zach Croft expects a fresh start on Alpha Cen. After leading a suicide mission to Mars, surviving a barrage of world-ending solar flares, and watching his best friend's dropship explode before his eyes, Zach wants nothing more than to leave the past behind and build a better society from the ground up. But upon landing, he discovers that Alpha Cen already has a society. It has settlements. Food. Technology that Zach didn't know existed. And a merciless tribalism that drives scientists to put heads on spikes and colleagues to starve each other into submission. As the days get colder and the beautiful landscape of Alpha Cen contorts into an unsurvivable black desert where the laws of physics do not apply, Zach quickly discovers that humans have a habit of destroying planets and people alike. If they can't find a way to settle their differences and save Alpha Cen, humanity's new beginning will be over before it starts. Because this time, there's nowhere else to go.