The third book in this series and it’s just as good as the first two! This is great military science fiction. I really like the story up to this point and knew that it was just going to get better even though I knew just as well as Brigadier General (BG) Cain what was going to happen.
As the fighting between the Superpowers dies down, peace now comes to the Alliance. But, as has been the case in all our real periods of peace, those times seem to be harder to manage than when we are at war. It has been clear to BG Cain for quite a while that something is not right with the Alliance Government. It wants to control the colony worlds with an iron hand much as it does with the present population of Earth. The people of Earth, except for a small minority, live in deplorable conditions from which Erik Cain managed to escape a long time ago. He does not trust the Earth government but can’t quite convince anyone to pay attention to what is now happening with not only the colony worlds but with his own Marine Corps.
It’s great to continue reading about a number of characters who have grown through out this series. They have fought and struggled along side each other and now face a very difficult challenge; they now have to fight against their own!
The Directorate of Alliance Intelligence has become so corrupt with power on Earth, that it feels the need to now exert it’s control over the colonial worlds which just have too much freedoms. Then Directorate of Alliance Intelligence wants to come down hard on these colonies to ensure that the flow of raw materials going to Earth continue without stoppage. Of course, these raw materials are necessary to ensure the elite of the decadent Earth society stay in power and stay accustom to the privileges and excesses they now have.
The colonies are just as you would expect. They want their independence from Earth and everything it stands for. Where does the Alliance Navy and Marine Corp find itself in this struggle between these two entities? Will it follow the orders of the Alliance Gov. as it has done for centuries or will they understand that their function is to protect all Alliance civilian. Should the Alliance Navy follow the demands of an Alliance appointed Governor and drop nuclear bombs on a colony world that would kill thousands, if not millions of civilian?
Read this next book and get answers to all these problems. All the people you’ve read about in the first two books come to fight again. Unfortunately, not all of them make it out alive this time!
I was a little disappointed with the editing of this book. There seemed to be a lot of screwy sentence structure with left out words or the wrong words used in the wrong places. It doesn’t appear that a real effort was made to do a comprehensive edit of the story. Hopefully, the next book will take the time to get a thorough edit and be easier to read.