Admiral Jack Romanoff has his hands full. He’s not only looking for a huge Locust fleet, but also the dangerous Novarites and the militant branch of the Tardans, each he will have to meet and defeat if he is to save the Confederation. Right now he’s just saved Argent, another Confederation planet who can and will help his cause.
He’s sent his former XO (Executive Officer) Vice Admiral MacKinnon back to Confederation HQ in hopes of finding them still functioning although cut-off from everyone due to the gates being blown. Jack has two exploratory ships that he found abandon and put them to good use. The other ship is doing a scouting mission attempting to find the Locust fleet before it finds him.
Romanoff with his battleship, the *Hunter*, a.k.a. the *Delta Orionis* looking for the Novarites and if necessary, defeat them in battle freeing another human planet. Right now he’s heading to the Vesuvius system where he believes some of the Novarites have fled. If they are there, he’s going to have a battle taking that system back away from the Novarites. Still, it’s a battle that he thinks he and his ship can win if the numbers stacked against him aren’t too great.
Meanwhile on the planet Argent, David Chen and his wife Tina are attempting to gain information on what the Poseidon Group was up to and specifically where they had built their secret spaceship building facilities. It was known that these space docks had been in operation for many, many years using the money that was supposed to go towards maintaining the mothballed fleet of battleships to build their own fleet of cruisers. Romanoff estimated that the Poseidon Group probably had built some where around nine-hundred ships and that was a number he couldn’t defeat. He also knew that the entire Confederation Navy back at the HQ wasn’t also able to defeat that fleet!
While David Chen was concentrating on his work a mysterious message was delivered to him by someone he didn’t recognize or pay much attention to. Come to find out, this guy was a paid assassin that was on contract to kill all the leadership of the Hunter as well as David, Tina and Lisa! He told David in the message that while he could kill everyone of them proven by the fact he just faced David in a supposedly secure facility, he wasn’t going to do that. He, instead, offered to help David and his group to find the Poseidon Group and eradicate it from the Confederation. He wasn’t necessarily part of the Poseidon Group, but was acting on his own while not a necessarily a friend of the Confederation either.
Sara Nastasi, acting on behalf of the Navy, but not as a Commodore, was getting ready to take a trip back to Port Royal with an Engineering team to explore the possibility of getting the other ten battleships up to speed. She briefly described what she thought needed done to executives of the Ringwald Engineering firm and they decided to send their two senior engineers back to Port Royal with her. It was hoped that with the huge stash of spare parts at Port Royal that the engineers would be able bring at least one or more of the ancient battleships back to life. Their assessment could mean the difference between humanity living a free life or becoming slaves to the Novarites or even worse, their unknown enemy.
As you can read, there is a lot going on. Not sure how they are keeping everything on track, but they all seem to be doing a pretty good job. They are going to need a lot more people if they are going to operate one or more battleships not counting on the vast number of engineers they will have to hire to get them ready. Additionally, the *Hunter* cannot be defeated in any battle right now or that would be disastrous for the Confederation.
It will be very interesting to read the next book 8, “Fog of War”, which I have on my reading list and will get to shortly.