Outstanding start to a new series. This is true science fiction that I really like. It’s exciting because it has the military involved in fighting against a new and unknown alien threat. There’s civilians involved and it’s the job of the military to protect these civilians even if they are not cooperating.
We’re on a new space station called Joint Base Sagittarius Arch (The Arch). You’re the new commander, Colonel Mateo Larra and you’ve just arrived with your wife, Dr. Esma Larra. This space station is brand new, just built at the opening of the wormhole gateway to another galaxy. The Sagittarius Arm Treaty Organization had built the new space station and it was to be inhabited by Terran Coalition members as well as the League of Sol members, diplomates, government workers, scientists and business owners. Just about 5,000 people were going to call this space station home and Col. Mateo Larra was responsible for it all. While he was the station Commander, he was also considered the de facto military governor for this sector of space.
His first tasks, as the Colonel saw it, was to firmly establish his authority with the civilians, especially the business community. They had one particular quasi-leader, Alexander (Lex) Armstrong Gold, who was all about money. The more profit he and his business made, the happier he was. The sole reason for any business to be on the space station was to supply the amenities that such a station needed, but to also find out what trading enterprises might be available in this new galaxy. Humans had already established relationships with the Zavlot and Zeivlot races in this new galaxy and there were probably more to exploit. Lex Gold was going to do a lot of that exploiting if this new station Commander didn’t get in his way.
As you read, you’ll see that Colonel Larra is going to have a few problems. He does start off strong by letting the civilian know he’s in charge whether they like it or not. Most understand, a few do not, but they will learn. While the station does have a surprisingly large amount of armament and can protect itself with a Wing of seventy-two starfighters with the latest in stealth capabilities. Yet, they really didn’t know who or what else was out there in this new galaxy. Already, survey ships had been sent out to see just what they could find. One such ship, the CFSV Sennebec had just approached a crystalline object that was emitting some strange power reading. That was the last that was heard of the Sennebec until later in our story.
Colonel Larra was to find out that other ships had recently gone missing. In fact, a total of nine were unaccounted for, with four of those know as pirate ships. So, it wasn’t just chalked up to pirate activity. Something or someone was doing something out there in dark space. Col. Larra was expecting an entire Carrier Wing to be coming through the war-gate soon, but would it be soon enough.
Then, not too far into the story, the CFSV Sennebec shows up coasting towards The Arch. No life signs can be detected on the ship nor can any damage be seen. Col. Larra dispatches a squadron of his starfighters to surround the ship while also sending a detachment of Marines to board and find out what’s going on with the ship. He doesn’t like the idea of a ghost ship closing with his space station. While they shut-down the engines and thoroughly inspect the ship and find nothing, it is towed into a quarantine dock. Unfortunately, the ship isn’t totally empty. The entity aboard the ship can easily avoid the humans primitive detection equipment, but he needs to make contact with one particular individual aboard this space station. That’s when the Ambassador for the League of Sol, Vencel Birosov Bako, goes missing and that’s also when Colonel Mateo Larra’s problems really begin.
Again, a very exciting story all the way to the almost ending. Something is going on in this new galaxy that is going to take more than one book to explain. I suppose more insight will be available in book 2, “Forward Hunt”, now avialbe on Amazon.