Transit to Zeiss: Book One of the Codex Veritatis Trilogy

After an astronaut murders his fellow crew on the first manned mission to planet Zeiss, the Church of the Vir Dei sends six thousand troops to the planet for reasons unknown. In pursuit is Army Colonel Eduard Veron, sworn enemy of the church, and whose past is intertwined with its reclusive pastor and self-proclaimed prophet Thomas Roth. When Veron encounters a tribe of shy primitives that identify with the immense black trees of Zeiss, he unwittingly discovers the source of the church’s power and the hidden key to the fate of Earth.