So all the major players are back and in agreement that something is going on that is going to destroy the Occupied Space worlds. The new enemy is known as The Black Flag and it is making small, but meaningful progress towards dominating all the worlds that it touches. Some worlds have become so corrupt that they won’t know the difference. Their governments have already descended into dictatorships and the people are no more than slaves. Most of this happened when the Black Flag established agents on their planet with the money to buy off just about anyone. Those that couldn’t be bought were simply eliminated. Those politicians who were in power and wanted to stay that way, didn’t object to these dark and behind the scenes because they just didn’t want to lose what they had.
Now, the Black Flag is going to openly begin its conquest of the Occupied Space worlds. Corrupt politicians in high offices soon found themselves the target of assassins. They died in droves and were replaced by the Black Flag agents that had corrupted them and their governments in the first place. Since most of these worlds were not very rich, they couldn’t and didn’t provide much in the way of protection for their own citizens and definitely not for the protection of their planet. Now, the meager resources they did produce were going to support Black Flag operations and its military conquest of all Occupied Space.
Yet, our heroes, Vane Jackson of Mars, the Cain Family (Erik, Sarah, Elias and Darius) and Fleet Admiral Augustus Garret and then later, Jarrod Tyler of Columbia, joined together to oppose the Black Flag with as much resolve as necessary. But, first they had to find out where the Black Flag headquarters was located and attempt to cut the head off the snake. Fighting piecemeal battles over various Occupied Space worlds wasn’t going to get the job done.
Unfortunately, the Black Flag had plans of their own and set them off way in advance of any moves made by the Occupied Space defenders. General Darius Cain and his Black Eagles found their “Nest” suddenly attacked by a huge Black Flag fleet. While the Black Eagles had never been defeated on the ground or in space, it looked like this might be the first time for that to happen. There were just too many Black Flag ships. At the same time, General Jarrod Tyler an assassination attempt was made against General Jarrod Tyler on Columbia. What support that planet could give to the Eagles Nest was now in chaos.
Meanwhile, the Marines or what few of them that were left on Armstrong were busy recruiting and training to build up their numbers for the coming battles. They knew the Black Flag soldiers were trained, didn’t seem to fear anything, and fought to the death in every fight. These new Marines weren’t the veterans of previous wars that General Erik Cain had led, but they were still Marines. Then the Black Flag fleet showed up above Armstrong and these new Marines were going to have to fight, ready or not.
With both of the major war-fighting assets of the Occupied Space coming under attack, it looked like the Black Flag was trying to knock out it’s biggest threats to total domination in one fell swoop. And, it seems they were going to be very successful. Could this mean then end of all these people we have read about? Have the Black Eagles taken on an enemy they cannot defeat and are their just too few Marines to fight back the hoards of Black Flag soldiers?
As this appears to be the end of the Crimson Worlds Successors, don’t be surprised to read about some of our heroes dying. Yeah, it’s going to happen, but in most cases, it’s the way they would have wanted to go. I guess when you kill off a bunch of your main characters, it is time to end the series, right?