This seems like a very long book. It does have a lot of stuff in it, a lot of background information and previously met characters. We get some insight into how and why some of the activities were already read about take place as they did. There’s also some twist that I didn’t see coming and one that kind of changes everything.
First off, we’re with a Black Leaf Kill Team led by Carter. He’s one of the mercenaries working for Mr. Nilo we met in the previous book, “Takeover”. He and his men have been well taken care of by Mr. Nilo and now his team has been outfitted with the best equipment, mostly, and sent on a new mission. They are to find Honey, the Endurian spy who is working Nether Ops and messed up Mr. Nilo’s attempt to acquire a museum full of savage tech. Mr. Nilo wants her badly since she might be the only lead as to where the savage tech went. She has been elusive. Carter’s team has searched out several “good” leads only to find nothing. Now they are heading to a space station called Rotho-Nops where again, rumor has it that Honey is hiding. As expected, they don’t find her, but they do find a lot of trouble. His team gets shot up pretty badly and then Mr. Surber comes to tell him and his team to go home. They are done spending time and resources on this hunt. Then something strange starts happening to his team…they die!
Mr. Nilo needs another bounty hunter that has the same skill set as Carter. Two names are provided by his AI, Tyrus Rechs and Wraith. He directs his Black Leaf AI to find both of them. Wraith, a.k.a. Captain Ford, a.k.a. Captain Aeson Keel and his crew are out to find Prisma and Crash, her war bot. They took off to some where unknown and Ford intends to track them down. He’s not exactly going to get that done, but he will find out that someone has put out a “Black” contract on him and that has about every bounty hunter in the galaxy trying to kill him. It gets pretty disastrous in that while he’s down on a space station following a lead, the Indelible VI comes under attack. Leenah is attempting to fly the ship and fight off her attackers, but the last word Ford gets is that there are just too many! Then he loses all contact with the Indelible VI. With Captain Ford on the space station is Garret, his very young code-slicer. They are now running for their lives with just about every bounty hunter on the station shooting at them. Then they are found by Zora. She’s also a bounty hunter, but was also a friend of Ford’s a few years back. Well actually she was the daughter of Doc, one of the Legionnaires that Ford used to run around with a long time ago. She wanted to help him out of his particular situation and Ford didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. He and Garret needed to get away from this space station before they wound up dead!
So, Captain Ford is really ticked off. He wants to know who put out this “Death Contract” on him and why. But, all his armor and most of his favorite weapons were aboard the Indelible VI and are apparently now gone. So he reaches out to Legion Commander Chhun and asks to “borrow” Tyrus Rechs’ armor that he previously gave to the Legion. Ford figures that by going as apparently Tyrus Rechs he can get into places that would only get Wraith killed. Most bounty hunters don’t know that Tyrus Rechs is no longer alive.
Now, here’s where the story gets interesting. Captain Ford needs to find out who put out the Death Contract and the one place to start is with the head of the Bounty Hunter Guild. Most of these Guilds don’t accept Black Contract and when they do, the only person who can accept it is the head of that particular Guild. Captain Ford as Tyrus Rechs is going to find who this person is and then kill him after he finds out who’s paying for the contract. That leads us to a lot of different places and since Captain Ford is looking and acting like Tyrus Rechs, we get a lot of background information about Rechs and his previous activities. It seems all of these people are tied in with the Legion at some point. Even Goth Sullus used to be a Legion General and a supposedly good guy! Lots of fighting coming up and some interesting changes that sees Captain Ford operating some what on his own for now.
Meanwhile, Prisma and Crash in their ancient star-shuttle have been pulled out of FTL and are being slowly dragged into a massive ship. It appears that his might be a derelict savage starship that is just sitting out here in nowhere space. Prisma’s trip was to have been a lot longer, but it’s now been cut short and she needs to figure out a way to stay out of this savage starship’s hold and continue on with her own objective. That doesn’t happen. What she and Crash find on this strange starship is another group that has a lot of background stories to tell about a lot of people we’re read about in previous books. Ravi eventually shows up and attempts to rescue Prisma and Crash along with some others they find in this ship. It’s kind of a strange part of the book and I’m not all that sure I understand what’s going on with this information, but it was at least interesting.
Where all this leads is not provided in this book. We get a lot of information about how things came about, but where everything is leading is still a mystery. Captain Ford is still going to look for Prisma and Ravi, while Garret hasn’t given up all hope that Leenah and the Indelible VI haven’t been heard from at all. I just can’t believe that ship and Leenah are actually gone. It was so much a part of Captain Ford that it’s strange to see him going other places, but he’s got some of Tryus Rechs’ equipment and soon will have a lot more.
The next book is already out and it’s titled, “Dark Victory”. I’ve already got it on my reading list. Not sure why this book says “Season 2” and “Book 1”. Per Amazon, this is book 11 in the series and that’s the way I’m going to title it.