This is a very interesting story that has to be getting close to the end. But, what is the end? I’m not sure after this book. Admiral Jack Romanoff is building a new Confederation Navy along with his father, Grand Admiral Romanoff. They are anticipating a few more battleships like the *Hunter* to be ready very soon. Meanwhile, Admiral Jack Romanoff is in the Vesuvius system scouting the area and assessing the best way to remove the alien Novarites from the planet. He realizes that with only one ship, even if it’s a battleship, he doesn’t have enough to defeat the Novarites without serious damage to his small fleet. So, he’s decided to head back to Argent and see if the second battleship commanded by Vice Admiral MacKinnon is ready to go to war.
At Argent, they get ready to do a lot of work on the *Hunter* that will be duplicated on the *Scorpius* and the *Aries* that are in orbit around Argent. These changes mainly have to do with establishing a separation between the Captain of the battleship with a Command Bridge and the Fleet Admiral and his Flag Bridge. This will be something new to Admiral Jack Romanoff, but he’s designated Vice Admiral Amanda Harris as his Captain in training until she transfers to her own battleship. He has already assigned Vice Admiral Derek Calvo to be Captain of the *Aries* and he will be leaving the *Hunter* very soon. The *Scorpius*and the *Aries* will both under go the same construction changes as the *Hunter* but they have some time to get things done.
One thing about what happens in this book is that they have meetings on every single thing they do. Their planning is very meticulous and seems to be done in almost real time. While this story has some interesting military activities, there’s actually very little fighting. Admiral Romanoff wants to capture another spy ship from the Kingdom that’s hanging around the Leaping Deer system, so he tells Lisa Gane, David and Tina Chen of his desires, and they make it happen in very short order. Some of the technology that Lisa has developed using the information Patrick had giver her is quite advanced and remarkable. It seems they have something that can stealthily defeat just about any ship if they so desired.
But, back to the Novarites on Vesuvius. These very militaristic aliens are killing as many humans as possible on the planet. Romanoff did manage to strike at their capital city where he believes a large portion of the Novarite leadership resided so at least that has been done. If he brings back the *Scorpius* and two squadrons of Cruisers plus all the Marines they can get their hands on, they might be able to defeat the Novarites totally. But that’s a lot of assets he has to arrange for and transport to Vesuvius. So, plans are made and more meetings are scheduled to make sure their plans will work. Everyone gets involved and everything is getting included so that means a lot of this story is just talking about what and when they are going to do something.
Then there’s the problem of the Novarites and Tardans already captured and located on Leaping Deer. While the Tardans are not the aggressors since their military faction has been dealt with, there are a lot of them. Jack Romanoff has identified a planet to which they will all be resettled, but that can’t happen until they fix their colony ships in orbit over Leaping Deer. Meanwhile, the Novarites are being very obstinate with everything. They believe they are superior to humans and do not like to be told what to do even though they are prisoner. Vice Admiral Sara Nastasi has the unfortunate job of getting these to aliens entities to work to get done what needs to be done. It’s going to take a lot of time.
Later in the book, we’ll run across some actual Navy Cruisers belonging to the Poseidon Group that suddenly appear in the Leaping Deer system. There are three of them and they seem to have come to see what Admiral Jack Romanoff and his Navy are up to. They are soon captured and all of their personnel are imprisoned aboard the Hunter. Romanoff assembles his Vice Admirals and they conduct a military tribunal. This Tribunal convicts every one of the Posiden Group Naval personnel of treason with the penalty of death. Of course none of the senior Captains of the captured Cruisers believe they will actually be killed, but sitting on that Tribunal is Vice Admiral Amanda Harris, and she is known as the “goddess of death”. She very clearly demonstrates why she has that nickname.
Lastly, we’re thrown into a completely different ending to this book than expected. All those plans they were previously made are thrown out the window when Admiral Romanoff and his accompanying fleet are faced with fighting the Locust who they thought were all defeated!
The story will continue in book 13, “No Retreat”, now available for pre-orders on Amazon. Its release date is scheduled for 24 March 2024.