We’re following the careers of two young people who happened to have the most famous Father in the Federation. Well, he was famous to some, and a traitor to others. Still, he won and reformed a Federation that was about to collapse on itself by treating it’s people very badly. As a Marine Colonel, Ryk Lysander stood up to his superiors and started a revolution against the current Federation administration and Chairman, ultimately removing them all from office. If you want to read his story in detail, I highly recommend that series.
Now, we’re following Captain Esther Lysander as she tries to establish herself as a Marine that can do whatever required and not rely on her Father’s reputation to get noticed. She’s done very well up to this point. She’s accepted her APOC (At the pleasure of the Chairman or Commandant) orders which means she’s on Special Duty. She is in fact, a quasi-spy or hidden asset for whatever mission may come up requiring her skills. She will operate outside of her military chain-of-command and usually in civilian clothes. Then again, she does have some PR stuff that she will have to do in uniform when directed by the Chairman. Most of her missions are extremely boring except for a few which you’ll read about in the book.
Esther Lysander is a woman on a mission. She believes that she has to excel at everything because that’s what her Father did. She’s even got a reputation that says she’s all out to advance her career regardless who gets in the way. That’s not necessarily true, she does have ambition, but by taking these APOC orders, she moved herself out of the normal career progression and she’s now worried it may have some serious damaging effects on her future. Still, she has to survive and preform well for the next three years. You’ll find out just how well she does. She is her Father’s daughter and strongly likes being a Marine.
The book is well written although Esther does amazingly manage to duck, dodge and hide through some significant fighting. Most would say she leads a charmed life and that would have to be true. As a Captain in the Marines, she’s looking for an opportunity to command a company, but her current assignment isn’t looking like that’s going to happen anytime soon. She’ll be up for Major about a year after she completes this tour, but that means she won’t have the normal three years as a company commander on her records. So she has a problem, one that she can’t solve. It is interesting to find out how this does get solved and I don’t know if we’ll follow her in the next book or not. It should be about time for Noah Lysander to be moving up the Enlisted ladder.
The author does mention at the end of this book that their will be one final book in this series. While I’m looking forward to that book, I don’t particularly relish the idea of any series written by Colonel Brazee to end (well, except for his Werewolf Marine stuff. Pretty stupid if you ask me! And no, I haven’t read them and don’t intend to).