Got to say this seemed like a very short book. I usually don’t pay attention to the length of a book, just how long it takes me to read it, and this one was done in two short nights of reading. Still, it was a very interesting story and a good continuation of the events that happened in the first book, “Survey Ship”. As you’ll recall, Captain Deborah Allen Riker is in command of the starship, ISS Edmund Fitzgerald. It had been caught in some kind a space anomaly which is also where Survey One was located. Through some remarkable engineering, they managed to free themselves from this anomaly and get into deep space. Where they are not sure, but they are at least away from the dreaded anomaly. But, in doing so, they had to leave the Edmund Fitzgerald behind, but got Survey One on the move!
So now, Captain Riker finds herself in command of this city-sized ship trying to figure out where they were. And, during their breakout from the anomaly, one other ship made it and that one belonged to the Trans-Matshuta Industries and was commanded by an Admiral that was very definitely hostile towards Captain Riker and her efforts. That other ship was only partially free from the anomaly. It was actually sheared in half and wasn’t doing very well on it’s own. By the time Captain Riker’s crew realized they had a neighbor, the crew of the Matshuta ship had boarded a shuttle and were heading for Survey One.
Captain Riker didn’t know if her crew could prevent a hostile boarding by a well armed company of soldiers. So, she decided to separate the city-dome from the slip-drive of Survey One and attempt to thwart the Matshuta’s hostile boarding that way. It didn’t necessarily work as planned and her and her small crew find themselves crashed on a pretty nice planet with one huge artifact. So here’s where the story gets kind of confusing. I’m not going to write what exactly happened, just say it’s very interesting and things kind of work out although not the way you’d expect. One of the semi-main characters does get killed. Which one is up to you to read and find out.
Again, I’ll repeat, this seemed like a pretty short book, but the writing is so smooth that I seem to be reading the book really fast. Sometimes it goes like that if the writing is really good. I did enjoy what I read and definitely will continue reading this series even thought it has a female leading character. The dialogue in the story probably matches what I could image people around me saying when I was in the military although this book doesn’t use anywhere near the foul language that I heard in real life!
It looks like the third book, “Battleship” will be available on Amazon on 2 November 2021. I’m going to put it on my reading list.