The saga continues although we’re back in the Commonwealth proper, not by choice, but by accident. How we got here is all covered in Book 13. Admiral Jack Romanoff and his old battleship, the *Delta Orionis*. a.k.a. *Hunter* have to fight the battle before them and it’s going to be a challenge. But first, Jack has something personal he has to attend and that is his wedding to Vice Admiral Sara Nastasi.
Admiral Romanoff and Vice Admiral Amanda Harris’ staffs have been planning the next step in their effort to eradicated the Poseidon Group and now the Tardans from the Commonwealth. The Poseidon Group have had sufficient time to take over most of the planets with their minions, but now they have been attacked by this rogue group of militant Tardans who bring their numerous and dangerous Locusts. These Locusts are vicious fighting machines that attack without concern for their wellbeing attempting to destroy targets by overwhelming them. The Hunter can fight medium sized groups of Locusts without getting much damage, but if the group is large enough and accompanied by Tardan military vessels, the fighting could be very dangerous. That was proven when the *Scorpius*, the other battleship that came with the *Hunter*, found itself in an ambush.
While it wasn’t necessarily Vice Admiral India MacKinnon’s fault that her ship got caught in the ambush, she did fail to realize that such an event could happen. If not for the timely arrival of the *Hunter*, the Scorpius might have been lost! Even now, India is recuperating from the loss of one of her legs. She will be bed ridden for some time, so Admiral Romanoff had appointed Rear Admiral Ann Walker as the new Captain of the ship. He had other plans for India which she could well perform even in her recuperating capacity. She might not like this new job, but she could do it and Jack needed to be elsewhere. They had captured the planet Faust and had corralled the Poseidon Group leadership in a secret compound which they thought was secure. It was not, especially for Lisa Gain.
So Lisa, Tina and David Chen had lead the assault upon the secret compound that housed the Poseidon Group leaders that had taken over Faust. Their capture was fairly easy since Lisa had gained access to their security system and had opened just about everything, even their super secret underground compound. Lisa also managed for find their subbasement which contained all the computers that held the data bases for the entire Poseidon Group operations. To say this was a coup of unexpected treasure would be an understatement. While Lisa was going through file after file, she had an unexpected visitor. Patrick has shown up unexpectedly deep in the subbasement while Lisa was working. She wasn’t startled to see him since she knew he had been operating in the Commonwealth proper but she wasn’t sure what he was up to right now. She was soon to find out.
Meanwhile, Professor Prescott, the same guy that brought then Captain Jack Romanoff to the *Hunter*, was working on a new weapon and he needed Vice Admiral Harris to see his work. She was busy planning for the *Hunter* and other ships in their small fleet to go to New Paris for their next challenge. Still, she made time to go see the Professor since he usually had some very useful ideas. This time was no exception. He had developed a method to send a missile through hyperspace loaded with an anti-matter warhead. This missile could be fired from hundreds of thousand kilometers away and would be virtually undetectable until it dropped back into normal space right in front of its target! Needless to say, this would be a very deadly weapon and Admiral Romanoff would want a lot of them. So, she delayed their departure for another day which gave Jack and Sara more time to enjoy their honeymoon.
Everything seems to be going in their favor. They arrive at New Paris and are surveying the system to see where their biggest threats lie. Lisa uses her stealth spy ship to approach a communications satellite which she boards and prepares to download all of its information. Tina Chen has taken the spy ship away so as not to be detected, when Lisa is suddenly captured by not the Tardans, but by Navy personnel of the Kingdom of Kastelara! They apparently were working with the Tardans in the New Paris system. So, what are they going to do with Lisa, how is she going to escape and how much more trouble will the Tardans be with their allies in several Kingdom ships? Answers will be forthcoming so read quickly.
Of course, Admiral Romanoff has lots more work to do than just capture New Paris. He now knows that the Tardans are headed for Earth and might be there quicker than he’d like. How will he stop them if the information he received from his Intel people lets him know that his might be the largest fleet of Tardans and Locusts he and his fleets have ever faced. That story will be told in book 15, “Shell Game” available for pre-order now and in print on 21 July 2024.