People sure do live a long time in the universe of the Crimson Worlds. We get to read about old Admirals like Augustus Garret going back into action when he’s obviously in his 100’s. It sure would be nice to even somewhat functional at that age! And then we found out that even Eric Cane, or rather General Eric Cain, thought to be dead some fifteen years ago, might not be dead, yet! Even if he wasn’t dead, he’d have to be awful old and without rejuv treatments if he was indeed a prisoner. And that’s what this book is about. Is Eric Cain still alive and can his Sons, Elias and Darius, actually rescue him alive? Seems impossible.
This book has a lot of moving parts. First we read about an Atlantia cargo freighter heading out for Arcadia with a cargo not quite the usual stuff. Instead of pharmaceuticals they normally carried, this run had their holds full of stable trans-uranic elements (ore). This was a very exotic and valuable mineral recently found in the mines of Glaciem. His cargo was supposed to be top secret information known only to a very select few on Atlantia. Except someone has told a pirate group exactly what he was carrying and where he was going. Not good news for a freighter.
This eventually gets Elias Cain involved since he’s something of a law enforcement officer on Atlantia. He’s gotten into trouble for going to Mars and speaking with Roderick Vance with out permission of his government. While there, he did talk with his twin brother, Darius and his Mother, Sarah Cain or General Sara Cain. These three didn’t do a lot of talking on the rare occasions they had met. Elias and his Mother not saw Darius’ position as Commanding General of the Black Eagles as something akin to being the Devil himself. The actions of the Black Eagles were known far and wide as they were mercenaries fighting for whomever paid them the most. That was very contrary to General Sarah Cain’s ideas of a Marine and Elias thought of Darius as a criminal of the worst sort. Elias and Darius did talk a little while at Mars and the seeds of doubt about what Elias and the government of Atlantia was doing to its people. Things now didn’t seem so perfect to Elias back on Atlantia.
Meanwhile, Roderick Vance, the Chief Intelligence Officer for all of Mars has had enough of the Martian Ruling Council. Once again they were ignoring his warnings of impending doom from an unknown enemy. They had refused to look beyond the borders of Mars and see what was going on in Occupied Space, but Roderick had done his homework and knew something troubling was coming. He was not going to stand around and do nothing like the last time. So, Roderick Vance engineers a coup and takes over Mars as a dictator. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.
And it just so happens, Sarah Cain or General Cain (seems like every Cain is a General now), has just received a mysterious visitor. He’s delivered to her a package containing a ring. This ring’s owner is none other than General Eric Cain, her husband who was thought to have die when his ship was destroyed some fifteen years ago. Is it possible he’s still alive? She finds out that the messenger came from a planet called Eldaron. If her husband is being held prisoner on that planet, it will take an army to find him. She knows of only one person who has an army that can do the job and that is her Son, Darius and his Black Eagles.
Once Darius gets wind of the fact his father may be still alive, nothing can stop him from going to Eldaron. Still, he knows this must be a trap. Someone is trying to lure the Black Eagles to Eldaron and they are going to be very successful, but not at defeating the Black Eagles no matter what surprise they have in store!
This is a very exciting book and adds a lot to the series. I wasn’t sure if this series would be very interesting after the first book, but now it’s really gotten interesting and it seems to be continuing for a while. I’ve already got “Black Flag” the third book and will be reading it soon.