P Z Johns

Wildfire P Z Johns

A woman is declared dead on arrival after an alien attack on a cargo space vessel, and her remains are used in a special military project. Doctors revive her and find a way to give her alien abilities. But she has no memory of her former self. She doesn't even know her own name, but the doctors consider her a success. She has cutting-edge prosthetics that give her advanced motor skills, and she possesses telepathic abilities that lets her communicate with her mind. These alien traits, however, make her an outcast among humans, and she can only befriend a paramilitary psycho goth who has a fascination with sharp objects.

The only tangible evidence to her past is a photograph of a woman and a horse. The photo is signed by her mom, but she recalls nothing about her mother. She only remembers the horse whose name is Wildfire. She discovers that finding herself is difficult, so she slowly creates a new self. She reasons that if the military plan is to turn her into a new weapon, she will give them more than what they bargained for. She changes her hair color to flaming red, puts on a black leather outfit, snaps a laser pistol to her side, and officially changes her name to Wildfire. While she is pleased with this change, she still wonders about a voice she hears in her head.

That's when the military comes knocking--it's payback time. The aliens are advancing, having captured one army fort and now moving on to another. What's more, someone is murdering the members of the medical team that transformed Wildfire. After a couple of victorious encounters against aliens, Wildfire teams up with a woman warrior named Akiko, who is trained in the Japanese samurai tradition. Through a tech-savvy friend of Akiko's, Wildfire also learns that her built-in equipment includes a "kill switch." Her military designers reasoned that, as she is a powerful tactical weapon, they need a way to shut her down if she runs amok.

She is asked to gain intelligence on the alien advance, so Wildfire and Akiko decide to go directly to the alien headquarters located in the mouth of a volcano. That's when all hell breaks loose.