Terra Formars volume 17 - Yu Sasuga and Kenchi Tachibana

 Time for more bugs action, as I dive into the 17th volume of the excellent Terra Formars series.

And what is that mysterious Theory 2 the previous volume ended with?

 

Theory 2 states that over 5000 years ago the solar system was inhabited by a single race, called the Rahab.  It concludes that the virus was actually a trap to keep humans away.  Ivan of the Russian team reveals they found a virus cluster, which he now carries on his body, to try and synthesise a vaccine from.

 

Still alive and fighting on Mars, a flashback teaches us the background of chinese general Liu, and how he rose from the poorest regions of China.  He recounts how, following the "Mumbai Protocol" to make regions green, the government used poisonous rain to wipe out the poor population, while this rain had green paint pigment to make it look from orbital pictures that the region was reforested instead.  But what is more, the bodies of the fallen where used for body harvesting...

 

It takes a look on how he rose up the steps for the Annex mission, and how he really feels towards Akari as the boy is actually the child of one of the Bugs-2 mission members, his childhood friend Ming-ming.  The remaining commanders are taken by the chinese vessel, together with the other remaining survivors.  Liu had asked his crew to betray him should they be caught out in the Chinese plan, as he was actually on the mission to help the poor and not the government.

 

 

As they prepare to chase the rescue vessel for the First and the Second, two strange warriors appear to claim Joseph's corpse.  They don't care about the war, but only about the continuation of the evolution process of humanity into perfect beings.   On board, he starts to regenerate even after bein literally cut to pieces, as he has a host of Eva clones on the vessel.

A flashback showed what really happened to Joseph's division, as he has killed them all himself, as well as his meeting with the original Eva.  He continued to kill her as well in order to do the MO procedure on her and steal her powers.  The chinese vessel's commander recalls just how the Roman Empire has gotten involved and became the 6th division, as the original plan only catered for 5 nations taking part.  He also suspects that the roaches that where already hiding onboard Annex II was the doing of Rome, as they seemingly have other plans, which had been discovered on Mars by the Russian division.

But as Mars was just a proxy war with the survivors now back en route to Earth, the governments start preparing for something bigger altogether.  Rome knows that the AE vaccine would also make the mosaic organ transplant a guaranteed success instead of the risky one it is now.  A mission overview shows the survivors of every division, but also reveals that the roaches aren't the only samples, as Komachi, Eva, Akari and Michelle are labelled "important samples".

And so the story on Mars comes to a close, and the final conflict will be fought out back on Earth, starting with volume 18...