Ok, this is where this story really takes off. In the first book, we all kind of got introduced to the new characters and how their situation developed. It seems that there’s an alien civilization that loves to send out AI controlled ships to gather other aliens for their zoo. One of the recent captives was none other than Charlie Traverse, an Army officer by way of ROTC on Earth. He was with his other zoo inmates, Laranna, a Stradan and Giblet, a Varnell. They had taken over the zoo ship with the help of the AI who wasn’t happy with what his owners wanted him to do. Unfortunately, the AI, now called Lenny, wasn’t an engineer, but just the pilot/operator of the ship. The ship had broken down in empty space and sat there for some 35 years until the zoo captives started freeing themselves. One other captive, Brazzo, a half bug and half metal, was an engineer which came in handy because he was finally able to get the ship moving again.
Now they were on planet Castillon looking for a way to arm their zoo ship. It used to be a military ship used by the Anguilar, but they found a better use for it and its AI. They stripped all its weapons and sent it on its collection mission. But, now that the ship was in control of the rogue AI and his few surviving zoo captives, they wanted to put some weapons back on it so they could defend themselves. They have found out that during the past thirty-five years, the Anguilar had pretty much conquered the entire know galaxy. That was not going over well with Laranna. She was a warrior of the planet Strada and could not believe her planet had been conquered. But, she, like Charlie didn’t necessarily want to go to Strada just to see for herself unless their ship could defend itself. Their hope was to find someone willing to trade some other exotic zoo animals for weapons.
They had to keep a low profile while wondering around Castillon. Laranna and Giblet were recognized species of the galaxy, but not so much Charlie. Oh, there were a few humans around, but not many so he kind of stood out from the crowd which wasn’t all that good. Still, they found someone who at least would talk to them about the weapons for their ship. He didn’t have them but he knew where they could be able to get some without a whole lot of trouble as long as they were discreet about it. Unfortunately, the location of the weapons was on a moon in orbit around Strada. Strada isn’t on the main path of anything in the galaxy. It’s really an outlier at the edge of known space, but did have a contingent of Anguilar permanently located on the planet and probably guarding the warehouse on the moon.
So, they devise a plan to sneak up on this moon with the codes they obtained from the information peddler and break into the containers. That was until they observed a larger freighter flying towards the moon and then figured that it might be an easier target with less Anguilar aboard than on the moon. Unfortunately, they should have stuck to their original plan because things didn’t go as planned on the freighter. One of the worst parts of the failed plan was that Laranna was captured. She was subsequently taken down to the surface of Strada with the intent of making an example out of her for the rest of the Stradans.
To make matters worse, Charlie and Laranna were definitely having feeling for one another, but they squabbled like an old married couple. Still Charlie wasn’t going to allow anyone to put Laranna up for a public execution. So how is he going to free Laranna from an occupying army on a planet he knows nothing about. And he’s only got himself, Giblet, a con-artist, and Brazzo, a sworn pacifist, and an AI that was programmed to not hurt anyone or anything. This is going to be a very interesting and exciting mission.
Additionally, we’re going to find out that not everything is as it seems. The AI, Lenny, hasn’t been telling them the truth about everything. They’re going to find out that there are other plans that have been in the works for a long, long time. These plans just needed the right people. I wonder who those people could be.
A real good series after just two books. I wouldn’t expect any less from two of my most prolific and favorite authors. I’m putting book 3, “Eclipse of Empire”, on my reading list right now.