This is the book where Hank Spears really takes off on his new career as a Bounty Hunter. His new/old partner, Lara Shen, a.k.a. Kilara Vex, Bounty Hunter is with him and they are trying their best to stay away from Inquisitor John Gregory. That guy is psycho but has the Consortium Government backing him. Gregory is assisted by his Acolyte Imogen Hush which you’ll read about towards the latter part of this book.
But first they have to explore a military space station called “Home”. This place is ran by an AI, a deranged AI, which proves even difficult for Ned. The latter is the major cause of most of Hank’s troubles. He found Ned, a nondescript cube while doing some innocent scrapping. He didn’t actually realize what he had until Ned started spouting off about doing something called finding the true enemy of humanity.
It seems like in the last war, the rebels were the ones who wanted to force humans to become cyborgs with all sorts of computer implantations. Of course not a lot of people liked that idea so various battles were fought between the two factions. The Consortium finally won out but the AI that controlled much of the rebel activity went in to hiding. He also created a super weapon Codename: Extinction. Ned had to find this super weapon before it was used on humanity and he convinced Hank to start working with him/it.
The problem with all this is that any kind of AI is banned in the Consortium. Any contact with an AI is punishable by death or imprisonment until death. Usually punishment was done on-site by the Inquisitors and especially by John Gregory. Fortunately, Hank found Lara just in time and she steered him into the Bounty Hunter profession, but they had to also assist Ned in his tracking down of this super weapon.
They didn’t find a welcoming embrace at “Home”. In fact, while Ned attempted to break into the AI controlling the space station, he suffered a virus attack and was shut down. Now Hank and Lara had to find someone that could descramble Ned and get him back in operation. That was going to be a delicate task since they couldn’t come right out and tell anyone why they needed an expert in computers. But, using Lara’s contacts as Kilara Vex, they were able to locate one Edwin Stern.
Now Edwin is something of a recluse and a little weird. He’s located on his own little asteroid that floats through space just so people can pinpoint his exact location at any given time. He’s also built his asteroid into something of a fortress since he doesn’t exactly like people visiting him. But, Hank and Lara are resourceful and determined. They convince Edwin to work on Ned, but only after Edwin tells them he needs them to do something for him.
That something is described as having a person named Satyn Stern “dealt with”. The definition of “dealt with” was left up to Hank and Lara, but that’s what he wanted in order to debug Ned. And by the way, Hank and Lara have picked up a new crew-person by the name of Alek. Alek used to be the bartender on the planet Bussel where Hank and Lara grew up at an orphanage. I say, used to be, because Hank and Lara had apprehended his former gang boss and turned him in for a bounty. That threw those under that boss out of work and that included Alek.
This new crewman was a Kyrogi, a very large Kyrogi with extremely large hands and feet. He could barely move about the Buzzard, Hank’s starship, but he made for a very good crewman in that he was also a former soldier and a doctor. Hank was going to need his services sometime during this book.
Anyway, back to Edwin and his task for Hank and Lara. It kind of turned deadly, but everyone recovered from this escapade, but there might be a time when they might not. I just so happened that Acolyte Imogen Hush has caught up with Hank and Lara and she has a surprise for them.
This book was very interesting and I can’t wait to read the next. Book 3, “Rebel Intelligence”, is available on Amazon now.