Little did I know that some day I’d find a sci-fi war series that I am getting tired of. No, not tired of reading it, but tired of all the war that has gone on for so long. I could never have survived the amount of conflict that Admiral Tyler Barron and his Confederation troops have been through.
In the beginning of this series, Captain Tyler Barron and the CFS Dauntless fought an unknown enemy from the very first book when he was the rear guard for the Confederation and encountered the Palatians. He not only fought that war, but also fought against the Union much later. Then, without much rest, he and his crew had to turn and fight the Hegemony. That enemy was far superior to the Confederation, but they had an enemy of their own that resurfaced. And now, the Confederation and the Hegemony are allies against the Highborn! War never stops for these people and I’m worn out!
Still, last we left, the Hegemony had just lost their capital Calphron to the Highborn, but the battle also cost the Highborn a lot of assets. So, a kind of peace had been experienced for just a little over three years. Yet, everyone knew that the war was going to come again soon, and this might really be their last war.
The Highborn were still intent on crushing the remaining Hegemony planets and then moving on to the Rim. They didn’t see any reason why they wouldn’t be totally successful and without too much of an effort. Their technology was supposed to be far superior to either the Hegemony or the Confederation, but they did admit that these humans did have a lot of fight in them. Some of that fight was taken out when Admiral Jake Stockton was captured after his starfighter was destroyed. Much to Jake’s distress, he was not killed, but has beomce a slave to the Highborn via a collar around his neck. That device controls all his thoughts and makes him obedient to the Highborn. While he has some small notion that what he’s doing is against everything he’s ever done, he can’t control himself to stop it. So, the Highborn have used him and his knowledge to train Thrall starfighters. Thralls are what Jake has become. A slave of the Highborn.
Now the Highborn have returned and they have starfighters spewing from small carriers. While this surprises the Confederation fleet, it’s thought that these can’t be very good pilots since they have just started learning how to fight in small craft. Things start turning out very bad for the Confederation and the Pact when they realize that someone very, very talented has been training the Highborn in starfighter tactics.
Meanwhile, Andi, Admiral Barron’s wife and mother of Cassie, has gone on a mission of her own. She beilieves that there is something the ancients did before the Cataclysm that drove the Highborn from civilized space. She needs to find what that something was and can only do so by searching what is known as the Badlands. And to make things, worse, the area of the Badlands she needs to search is in Highborn controlled territory. Still, as we’ve learned, nothing stops Andi when she sets her mind on doing something.
Another good read in this very exciting, but tiring series. This series has made me so tired of war that I actually hesitate to read another book, except I think this particu