This book is really for young adults. The main characters, Lawson Sawyer, is about 20 or maybe younger. Most of the other people around him, other than the military, are about his age. Mustaf is Lawson’s best friend and he’s about his age as is Serena, who happens to be a very wealthy. These three hang together thought most of the story along with some other people that are really “advisors” to these very young and inexperienced kids. That doesn’t make it for a bad book, it just makes it kind of tedious to have to remind Lawson that he has to take things a little more seriously. And he is learning. Every day he becomes more and more like the Messenger of old or like Dash Sawyer, the original Messenger.
But right now, Lawson has got a serious problem. He and what is left of this Cygnus Realm Expedition had to fleet to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) to get away from a vastly improved Pulsar and Darius Spann. Spann had met with the Khitsos and they turned out to be the evil that everyone figured they were. Spann had managed to convince them to rebuild his mech into something that could not be defeated by all the forces the real Messenger could throw against him. They in turn agreed to make Spann into the Imperial Autarch and Champion of Humanity as long as he did their bidding. But they were going to all him to return to his home in the Milky Way where he would conquered all humanity.
Spann wasn’t going to do this peacefully. In fact, the firs thing he did was locate where Lawson and his Expedition were and headed directly for them. Lawson and the Cygnus Realm Expedition has met with the Unseen and found that they had a facility called the Fulcrum which was very similar to the Forge at Kingsport. The Fulcrum was heavily armed and thought that it could protect itself, but when Spann showed up in the upgraded Pulsar, it only took one shot to put it out of commission. Not only that, but several major vessels of the Cygnus Realm Expedition were lost in the battle. This was how he was going to treat the humans back at Kingsport and the Forge. They wouldn’t be able to stand against him either.
And Spann was going to make his way back to the Cygnus Empire well ahead of Lawson and his Expedition. He was going to ensure that those who opposed him, no longer did so or died. He also formally announced that he was now the Imperial Autarch and his word was law. He casually destroyed one entire planet that was previously disloyal to him as an example of what would happen to others who did the same.
Meanwhile, Lawson had to find a way back to Kingsport. That effort was not going to be easy. Spann’s former adviser, Chapel King, had advised Lawson not to stray from their straight forward mission to get back home, no side trips to investigate anything, just get to a Radiant Point and go home. Yet, things came up that had to be investigated. And that’s when Lawson Sawyer and his group met their own Khitsos. This one though, had helped them to actually defeat Chapel King, who had actually been operating under the influence of some evil Khitsos. King knew that this other Khitsos was aboard an alien ship and he definitely did not want it to meet with Lawson Sawyer. But, they did meet and that meeting resulted in Chapel Kings death and a relationship with a “True Khitsos” called Pariah. It turns out that there are good and back Khitsos, a lot more bad than good, but this one was willing to help Lawson Sawyer and his Expedition return home.
So, what this is building up to obviously is a final confrontation between Darius Spann as the Autarch and Lawson Sawyer as the Messenger. It will happen partially back at Kingsport and the Forge, but the real battle will be where taken to the Khitsos right where they live. Spann isn’t the only one with friends. The Unseen that Lawson had tired to defend had also left him and his party a key to unlocking the language of the Unseen. This meant that the Forge or Custodian now had new knowledge of weapons and systems they previously could not access. Under Lawson guidance, they started developing some potent weapons hoping this would give them a chance to defeat not only Darius Spann but also the False Khitsos.
I won’t tell you how this all ends, but this is the last book in this series. It was a good story, but again, I think it was more directed to young adults. It would be nice to have high powered mechanized monsters to fly around space fighting your enemies, but that’s not how things really happen.
==[Note: As of 12/03/2023, this will not be published on Amazon since I have been banned from posting reviews for some unknown reason. Once the ban is lifted, assuming it does get lifted, I’ll go back and post this to Amazon.]==