Master Peacemaker Van Tudor and his crew aboard the *Fafnir* have been busy. They have a lot on their plate since Van has decided not to sit behind a desk at Anvil Dark, but pursue the bad guys like he has always done. This suited his crew just fine except they had to change some of their long-standing operating procedures. No long was Master Tudor doing to go charing out of the *Fafnir*, or *Frankie* when they under went a boarding action. As a Master, his crew considered him way too valuable to be exposed to the bad guys that way. So, Van was having to adjust to somethings which he didn’t really like.
Additionally, anytime some Guild action required the presence of a Master, guess who was called to handle the job. Van didn’t mind, but some of these taskings were minor and just not worth his time. Yet, he did them since he was usually available or could be made available if necessary. But, his real problems were back on Earth where the Equal Grasp was stirring up a lot of problems. There also seemed to be a lot of Earthly artifacts floating around in space and Van wanted to know where this stuff was coming from and why.
He was directed to a floating space station called Bopul which was similar to Crossroads in scale, but seemed to have been built by bits and pieces of other ships and space stations over a short period of time. It was operating as a trade center of sorts with the unusual idea of having created their own currency. There was nothing unusual about this nor was most of it illegal, but Van still wanted to know where the stuff from Earth was being acquired, how and why.
There are a number of things going on in this book that take from the previous books. Gabby is recuperating at Point Alus Kyr, a major medical facility in space which had recently found a new Director that was doing her best to stay on Van’s and the Guild’s good-side. Gabby appeared to be physically ready to rejoin the *Fafnir* crew and was more than ready to rejoin with Funboy. Then there was the new mother, Icky, who really didn’t know how to be a mother since her’s had up and left the family while she was just a baby herself. So, Van decided that Icky and Paxomar with their children needed to spend some time with the P’nosk. These were strongly aliens a matronly bent where every P’nosk had several Mothers to care for them. A little time in this environment could teach Icky and Pax a lot about parenthood.
Back to his problems with Earth and the Equal Grasp. These bad guys wanted to do nothing but exploit Earth and their naïve population. The introduction of high-powered off-world weapons was one thing that Van Tudor was not going to allow. How to solve the problem of the Equal Grasp was suddenly interrupted by the information that Miryam had been abducted by none other than Colonel Mandeville! This now put Van on a war-footing against this Colonel who had no idea who he was messing with. Heads were going to roll over this and Miryam was going to be freed or something very drastic would take place in the United States.
In addition to this major problem, the Twist network was being sabotaged by some unknowns and for some unknown reason. This also required a Master to start the investigation because it crossed numerous jurisdictional boundaries.The Twist net work was vital to all commerce within the galaxy and made day-to-day conversation over vast distances possible. Someone couldn’t just go blowing up this Twist stations without some repercussions.
All this is leading to a very surprising and unexpected end. Van has got a lot of things going on and he’s not necessarily looking at everything he should before he acts. And then there’s the possibility that Netty’s work containing Calamity could be coming to a catastrophic end. The story doesn’t end with this book, but takes a major change in direction. Unfortunately, book 21 isn’t mentioned on Amazon so we’ll have to wait to find out how this ends.