There’s something about this story that just doesn’t sit right with me. I’m not sure the author knows that much about the military or if he/she does, then it’s not showing in this book. It starts off with a young guy being assigned to the Providence, a United Human Fleet starship that had seen better days. It’s an old battleship/carrier that is just barely being kept out of the mothball fleet. Vin Husher is the young guy and he’s just been demoted via a military court-martial and now assigned to the Providence.
Such assignment is meant as a continuation of his punishment since the Providence is usually the end point of a career for anyone assigned to her. The book says that now Husher is a First Lieutenant, down from Captain, which, if this was an Army organization, would be correct. But, the story leads you to believe that Vin Husher was a former starship Captain which doesn’t make sense in that is a Naval rank. He, himself, later says he’s a Condor pilot, which he could be as 1st Lt. if the Condors were part of an Air Force not the Navy. So, I’m already confused as to what kind of military they are using in this book. I get distracted by this kind of writing.
Next, it seems that Captain Keyes, commanding the Providence, is a Naval officer and he’s very protective of his ship. His boss, Admiral Carrow doesn’t think much of the Providence and does all he can to keep it away from any real Naval action. Right now, they are assigned to investigate who is attacking some Ocharium mining operation in the Caspar region. Captain Keyes assigns 1st Lt. Husher to the ground force to go to the Thessaly colony and find out what’s going on. Now, again, why would a 1st Lt. pilot be assigned to a combat mission best suited for Marines? And then he’s place under the command of a Marine Seargeant! Not going to happen or at least it shouldn’t happen. This, again, shows the authors lack of military knowledge.
But, the story continues on and even gets stranger. Aboard the Providence are several types of starfighters and shuttles. Since this battleship also acts as a carrier, it has a Commander of the Air Group or CAG, which is usually a full Commander. Yet, we find the CAG isn’t even a human but a Winger, a bird-like alien, named Fesky! There is a Lieutenant Hornwood that supposed to be the CAG, but he’s, for some reason, non-functional or shoved aside by this alien presumedly with Captain Keyes approval. Not the way to run a ship. The alien Winger isn’t even supposed to be aboard a human vessel and certainly isn’t in the human Navy!
So, 1st Lt. Husher goes on the ground mission and they accomplish what they intended. Then they are attacked by the Wingers, yes, the same species as Fesky, and these Wingers were supposed to be allies of the humans. But, it appears that the humans are not the best characters in this universe. They apparently have control of a mineral called Ocharium which has some amazing properties. One of which is that it can produce wormholes when used just right which ships can use to go from place to place very quickly. With humans the only ones controlling this mineral, it has allowed them to pretty much clamp down on any other species free travel about the universe. Additionally, the human fleet can appear anywhere and take on any other alien military without much fear of retaliation since the humans ship can just jump away if attacked. All this has done is to make the other aliens now a little hostile towards humans.
For some reason a human starship orbiting the home world of the Wingers, suddenly took a nose dive and crashed into the planet. This caused a lot of loss of live as expected and was considered an act of war by the Wingers! They have cut off all communications with the humans and are not attacking any human vessel that approaches any of their planets. The Providence is tasked with going to the Wingers home planet and getting them to talk so the humans can explain what happened and end the war before it gets started.
As you can read, there are a lot of things I don’t care for in the book. Captain Keyes is not the best starship Captain I’ve read about and his commander, Admiral Carrow and the entire human Navy is pretty stupid. As for our main character, why is a supposed Naval officer is acting like a Marine one moment, then a fighter pilot the next and then as a mad bomber on a suicide mission the next? Strange story to say the least.
This is a trilogy all in one book. I’m not going to read the next book, yet. I just don’t find it that interesting. Oh, I might come back to it later, but I’ve got to read something a little more realistic even if this is all science fiction!