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EARTH UNBOUND
A Military Sci-Fi Space Opera by J Hawkens
They took his son. They picked the wrong father.
When aliens invaded Earth and abducted his teenage son, Captain Michael Denton discovered something impossible in his own blood: the genetic legacy of a civilization that ruled the stars forty-seven thousand years ago.
Now he commands the Vigilant—an ancient warship with a mind of its own—and leads a crew of alien outcasts on an impossible rescue mission. Because the Roytions didn't just take his son. They're transforming David into something monstrous.
And if Michael can't reach him in time, the boy he's fighting to save may become the weapon used to destroy everything he loves.
Book One: Legacy Rising
Status: Manuscript complete • Final editing in progress • Targeting 2026 publication
Legacy Rising introduces Michael Denton—a 47-year-old military officer who discovers that the key to saving his kidnapped son lies in genetic markers humanity didn't know we carried. Markers placed three million years ago by a vanished civilization known only as the Legacy.
What begins as one father's desperate mission becomes humanity's first step toward claiming our place in a galaxy that never expected us to matter.
What You'll Find Inside
High-stakes military action — Tactical combat, ship-to-ship battles, and special ops rescue missions where every decision matters
A galaxy of alien civilizations — From the bio-neural Roytian Supremacy to crystalline Zenythians whose harmonic resonance can induce awe, fear, or submission
Ancient mysteries — Legacy AI systems awakening after millennia, with their own agendas and secrets that could reshape galactic power
Dark humor and heart — A protagonist who quotes 80s movies under fire and a found family of misfits who'd die for each other
A father's unbreakable bond — At its core, this is a story about love powerful enough to challenge the stars
The Earth Unbound Universe
The galaxy is a tapestry of divergent histories, evolutionary paths, and moral frameworks. Every species brings a unique perspective on power, identity, and survival:
The Ferron Chorus — Stone-singing warriors whose bioluminescent beards store ancestral memory
The Roytian Supremacy — Bio-neural supremacists who fuse organic tissue with cybernetic pathways to create living weapons
The Zenythians — Towering crystalline beings whose geometric resonance manipulates matter itself
And humanity—unexpected, underestimated, and carrying a genetic signature that makes us the wild card no one accounted for.
Perfect For Fans Of
If you love Expeditionary Force by Craig Alanson, The Lost Fleet by Jack Campbell, or Old Man's War by John Scalzi—accessible military sci-fi with humor, heart, and heroes who fight impossible odds—you'll feel right at home aboard the Vigilant.
The Journey Ahead
Earth Unbound is planned as a multi-book series. Future installments will expand the Legacy mystery, introduce new civilizations and threats, and explore humanity's true role in a millennia-spanning struggle for galactic survival.
Legacy Rising is just the beginning.
About J Hawkens
J Hawkens writes military science fiction that blends tactical action with heart, humor, and the kind of dad jokes that make alien crew members question humanity's evolutionary trajectory.
Based in Indiana, he brings an engineer's precision and a storyteller's heart to the genre. His influences include Craig Alanson's balance of humor and tension, Raymond Reddington's narrative sophistication, and the classic sci-fi epics that shaped a generation of stargazers.
"In the grand tradition of military sci-fi, the best space operas are fundamentally about people—human or otherwise—struggling with universal questions while facing impossible odds."
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Coming 2026