Things slow down in this book. By that I mean there isn’t a lot of star-fighting, space combat to try and wrap your head around. Commodore Jack Romanoff has some problems he needs to get fixed in order to fix his ship, the Hunter, after it’s last battle against the Novarites. As you remember, the Hunter when out to meet the Novarite fleet which was in direct disobedience to his orders from Rear Admiral Allen. The contention is that Commodore Romanoff isn’t under the command of Admiral Allen and Admiral Allen isn’t even in a combat command position. Romanoff is the commander of the Delta Orionis, a.k.a. Hunter, and he’s not about to let the Rear Admiral tell him how to conduct his combat mission simply because the guy is of a higher rank. Jack is getting ready to meet with the President of the planet Argent and currently the Chairman of the Confederation Council in this sector.
President Caroline Ibarra was already getting very familiar with some of Romanoff’s crew as two had just been rescued from a turn-coat intelligence operative Bronson Rowe. Lisa Gane and Professor Prescott were his two abductees whom he planed to eventually turn over to the conspiracy. While Rowe was now in custody, President Ibarra wanted to know what happened directly from Lisa, so Tina Chen was there to escort her to that meeting. Lisa was very apprehensive about the meeting considering in her former life she was something of a criminal hacking into secure networks and other systems. But with her resident and internal alien on-board, Regex, she had been doing some very significant and helpful work for Commodore Romanoff and the war effort. She hoped the President wouldn’t press her too hard on her past and wouldn’t “freak-out” about the alien she carried insider her.
Eventually, Commodore Romanoff was going to have to meet with President Ibarra and see if he could get her help with Rear Admiral Allen. While she wasn’t in-charge of the Navy, she was the political lead of the government in this sector so she could provide over-site to Naval activities which would include Rear Admiral Allen. Admiral Allen was assigned as the Confederation Naval Liaison to the Confederation Council in this sector and since President chaired the Council she had been working with him for quite some time. Still, in Jack’s favor, he had just saved the planet from serious harm by defeating the Novarites before they came close enough to do damage to the planet.
Now back to the conspiracy. The captured intel operative, Bronson Rowe, was beginning to see that it was to his advantage to start talking about what was going on with this conspiracy. While he wasn’t in the upper echelons, he did know certain things. One of which was that the conspiracy group was known as the Poseidon Group. They were very active on the planet Argent and had other high-level operatives positions throughout President Ibarra’s organization. Rowe also knew that he was a dead man now that he was caught and the Poseidon Group would attempt to kill him very soon. He also knew that attempts on other kill figures to include President Ibarra and Commodore Romanoff would be part of their plans for the near future. The purpose of the Poseidon Group was to over-throw the Confederation government.
So most of the actions in this book take place on the planet Argent. The Hunter sets up a command facility on Argent so they can begin tracking down some of the conspirators and also facilitate getting help from the manufactures and workers of the planet for the parts and labor they will need to fix the Hunter. Romanoff doesn’t belief another attack by the Novarites or the Tardan military is imminent, so he’s willing to spend the time to make sure he has the President’s support and that will smooth the way for her people to support his mission.
There are going to be some very interesting reveals in this book. President Ibarra is a very interesting character and she has a lot of interesting ideas. After having written “interesting” twice in one sentence, you should find this book very interesting all the way through. I hope the next book 7, “Shield of Humanity”, is just as interesting.