Elusive Steps - Western Wave, #1

Synopsis: Elusive Steps   When we look to the past for answers about how we got to where we are as a species, a significant amount of data is missing or misinterpreted.  We are taught that the universe has an age, and that age is undisputed.  We accept that hypothesized physics is fact and to question the underlying data makes one a heretic.  But the past presents so many puzzles to our modern understanding, that to discount the evidence as trivial, or resolved, is to judge a major pillar of our existence as passé.  This is the dilemma that John West faces, as he struggles with the concept of the Electric Universe Theory and his realization the Gravity Centric model of the universe, is flawed to the point of absurdity.  For most scholars, there will be no going back to locate the fork in the road that has led to this path of minimum resistance and maximum guesswork.   John's invention of the Step Drive is upsetting the standards of the day and his concern for the misuse of his invention will not be tolerated by the elite.
 Only by separating the lock from the key, can John ensure that the door to cataclysmic danger remains closed.  He plans to move the testing of his invention to a location in space where the investigation into the potential for his device will not result in the Earth suffering from its failures or abuse.  This is not viewed as prudent and the powers that be, are intent on capturing an example of the device for their own study and refinement.  The fledgling company's goal of leaving the solar system requires assistance from the same people who so desperately want his invention.  Cooperation gives the Earth a means of transportation while they help reach his goal of isolation.
 But by now, he and the Earth's manufacturing abilities are wed at the hip, and his fear is slowly replaced by the excitement of exploration.  This leads to a crippled alien ship, an obvious trap, a rescue mission and Earth's first true encounter with an alien species.  This handy diversion also initiates a plan to steal several Step Drives and transport them to a location where they can be studied by the government.
 Unfortunately, the ruse is discovered, but before John can potentially destroy his equipment remotely, the entire communications network and all the equipment supplied by the 'powers that be' are destroyed.  The stolen drives have been secured, or so they thought.  The rescue reveals that large numbers of this alien species are being kidnapped for reasons unknown, but John West has a plan to help.  This leads to a planet whose occupants are enslaved workers, meant to mine materials for the group that set the trap.  Conditions for these trapped souls are not good.  A group of tightly bound, electrically charged, planetary bodies, whose dangerous high voltage and massive currents are reshaping the surface of these planets, allows for the mining of the hardened surface materials.   The rescue of these workers leads to an encounter with a second alien species whose abilities far surpass the humans.  This encounter is also the reason that John West is found dead, amongst a field of debris.  His lifeless body, contained within a shroud of this new species' making.  Their technology allows Earth to resuscitate the long dead body of John West, who now is having nightmares about the future of Earth.  Fear of mental degradation lands him in an asylum, but help arrives in the form of an escape, a stolen ship, and the recovery of evidence that prove his nightmares are based in fact.  Earth appears to be in trouble, and no one knows what to do about it.