This is really a strange series. The main character has mostly been dead or incapacitated for most of the story, at least I think he’s the main character. There are a lot of characters, some not as important as others, admittedly, but they come and go because there are at least two, maybe three story-threads.
We’re mostly on the starship *USDC Renheim* who is commanded by Captain Meyer whom we met in the previous books. He’s backed up by his XO, Commander Farnese. They also were accompanied by Governer Ardent. The *Renheim* has been tasked with recovering the escape pods that left the Mantis when it was slammed into Blackthorn Station. While that served it’s purpose, it resulted in the crew evacuating enmass that now needed to be recover. The XO of the *USDC Mantis*, Commander Webster had taken the Govenor’s yacht to the planet Tigris in hopes of recovering the USDC’s Presidents Daugher.
Only that’s not what was going on at Tigris. The alien known as the Da’al were still in the area and had already shot down Commander Webster’s ship after he and his Marine contingent had landed on the planet at the scientific research station. What the scientist were studying was a direlict spaceship of unknown origin. Weston soon met up with a guy named Nash who appeared to be a Confederation spook. He had orders from the Admirality that told him to recover the alien spaceship. Anyone and everyone were to come under his command while the recovery process was underway. Of coures, that didn’t set well with Commander Webster, but orders were orders and he was going to follow them.
Now back on the *USDC Renheim*, unknown to everyone but a certain doctor, Governor Ardent had secretly secluded one of the escape pods and was particularly interested in getting the individual inside revived. That person was none other than Captain Robert Faulkner! Yes, this guy appearenlty won’t die. He had not too long ago been captured by the Yakutians where Dr. Morton had also secluded him, got him revived enough to then shoot him out in another escape pod so he would wind up in friendly hands. Why Ardent felt she couldn’t reveil that she had Faulkner in recover was never discussed. But, it actually turns out that she did a good thing.
So, back on the other side of the Henritta Gate, was Admiral Winterson and his fleet. He had been ordered to protect the Gate from the Da’al. It was thought that they might be aiming to destroy the gate thereby cutting the Confederation off from this sector of space. The Da’al had a three ship fleet heading towards the gate so that’s where Admiral Winterson was going to stop and defend. He wasn’t sure if the had enough to stop these Da’al ships but they did have an experimental weapons that might turn the tide if it actually worked. The test of the weapon might come during the coming battle.
The *USDC Renheim* was watching a Da’al ship near another commercial space station called the Laxx. It was mostly a shipping hub but was populated by a large number of civilians. No one knew what the Da’als intent was towards the station, but it was Captain Meyer’s duty to make sure the civilians were protected. He had arranged for several large civilian freighters to start taking the civilians off the station as quickly as possible. If the Da’al were to attack, Captain Meyer had to be in position to defend the station, yet he wasn’t making any moves to position his ship to do so. There was something going on with Captain Meyer and his XO. They were very reluctant to commit their ship to any kind of offensive action and know one knew why. Captain Meyer was already thought of as coward due to his original fleeing in face of the Da’al.
So, will the USDC Reheim actually get into a fight with the Da’al if it attacks the space station? No one is sure, yet is there some way that Captain Meyer could be replaced? Also, how in the world will the Confederation secure that alien starship on Tigirs when they have nothing in orbit to even protect themselves from the orbiting Da’al starship. I have at times felt this story and the series kind of drags on and nothing really exciting happens. This book had the same periods of nothing going on, but towards the end there was some intereting action taking place. I hope it keeps up.
The next book, book 5, “Cry of War”, is now available on Amazon.