Too long of a review. Sorry, it’s just that exiting of a book!
This book has screwed up my reading list. I can’t just stop with this first book in this series. I’m going to get the second book, “Second Chances”, immediately and begin reading it, because, well, because it’s just that good!
Talk about an exciting and well written book of an entirely impossible situation. We start out with Ensign Cole Jackson right out of the Academy and assigned to the *Freedom*. As an Ensign, he knows he’s not going to be doing a whole lot of exciting stuff on his very first ship. He just hope he can make it to his second ship with maybe, well, a promotion someday. His buddy is Ensign Sergei Cruz and he’s just came from the Academy also. The only difference between the two, well there’s a lot of differences, but Cole is a Bridge Officer while Sergei was an Engineering Officer and their third friend, Arnie Erikson was the same, an Engineering Officer. The latter two didn’t understand why Cole was interested in always looking at the stars. They thought he was missing something when he didn’t find engines enticing.
So, Earth has discovered something call transdimenstional travel which allows starships to go far beyond the Solar System and far faster than anyone ever thought possible. Earth and colonized numerous planets and well, things were going just splendidly for everyone except the fleet. They had nothing really to do but travel the shipping lanes looking for pirates or whatnot, until that all changed very, very quickly.
Cole and Arnie were assigned emergency stations in Auxiliary Control but today Arnie was taking Cole’s shift so Cole could take in the sights of his new ship. See he had been assigned loading cargo on a space station for the last month as penance for breaking some rules at the Academy. It was lucky that he hadn’t been kicked out because Cole was know to kind of overlook certain rules he deemed unnecessary. But, right now he and Sergei were trying to enjoy a good breakfast on the mess decks. Until the klaxon started going off and the Captain announced, “Battlestations”!
So Cole and Sergei head to Auxiliary Control only to feel the ship start to buckle and jump like it’s not supposed to do. They don’t know what’s happening nor why. When they do finally get to Aux Control, they find it almost destroyed, with a lot of the consoles on fire and injured personnel all over the place. Cole says they’ve got to help so he starts going through the room seeing who’s alive and what help they can provide. Cole then gets on one of the working consoles and begins tapping into the bridge and bringing up bridge sensors, which happens to be agains regs from where he’s at.
Cole eventually gets the sensors up only to see an alien ship firing on the “Freedom”. Meanwhile more stuff is blowing up around him and the fires are getting worse. Cole has to do something but that means gains access to targeting controls on the bridge. Will the Captain see that and stop him from taking action?
Captain Keren Malcolm knows her ship is in terrible trouble. She’s already fought off one alien ship that attacked without warning, but this last ship was getting ready to destroy her ship if she didn’t get something done. She barely had steering control but her Fire Control console was dead. Yet, someone had fired off the “Freedom’s” lasers from Auxiliary Control. What she did notice was that the only lasers working were the forward lasers. Somehow they had to get this alien ship in front of them so they could engage with the only laser she had.
Cole had fired the lasers hoping that someone on the bridge would see they were working. He knew the alien ship was closing from the stern so he hope the Captain or someone would figure out his plan. And it seems they did. The *Freedom* surged ahead with the alien ship coming up very fast. Then the “Freedom” stopped! The alien ship dived to avoid the collision and when on ahead of the “Freedom” to its doom. Cole had Sergei fire the lasers just as soon as the alien ship got right in front of the *Freedom*. With that done, Cole went about searching through Auxiliary Control only to find his friend Arnie dead under one of the exploded consoles. Cole was grieving for his lost friend forgetting about what had happened to him. He was burnt badly and was having trouble seeing out of one eye. Sergei wasn’t doing much better but he was still moving around.
So, this is just the beginning of this story. We have a long, long way to go, but it’s not on the “Freedom”. No Ensign Cole Jackson has something else that will take him away from the “Freedom”. His Captain found out who was operating in Aux Control and basically saved her ship so she orders him to take command of a salvage crew to go aboard their sister ship, the “Hood” and see what they can come back with as spare parts. The “Hood” wasn’t so lucky as the “Freedom”. She was basically destroyed and as now 2nd Lieutenant in command of an away team, Cole was determined to do the best job he could and get back to the “Freedom” with vital repair parts. Of course he took along Ensign Sergei Cruz because the Captain said he could. Strangely, the shuttle pilot assigned to this mission was a Lieutenant Flarity. She wasn’t happy with the fact that she was in command of this away team, but orders were orders.
So, now we find Cole and Sergei going to a beat-up hulk looking for things to repair the “Freedom”. Hopefully, they don’t have any more aliens showing up, but that’s not a given. The Captain of the “Freedom” has received word from Fleet HQ that this has been a system wide attack along a huge front. The Fleet has suffered greatly. They need her ship back in fighting order and ready to be assigned a new mission. So, Cole and his team have to get busy. The first thing that run into is having to move the frozen corpses of the dead crew of the “Hood” into storage compartments that will keep them preserved. They can’t do anything for the hundreds of bodies blown out into space which include all of the bridge crew. Cole has his job cut out for him and Lieutenant Flarity still isn’t sure he should be in-charge.
But he is and then he’s really in-charge! The “Freedom” has been ordered to go to another system and assist in its defense. Captain Malcolm tells 2nd Lieutenant Jackson to continue collecting spare parts and they’ll return when they can. But, as you’ll read, that doesn’t happen. So, what does 2nd Lieutenant Jackson do with his first command? It’s going to get real exciting. The only bad part is that this book ends in a very, very hard to take place. That’s why I can’t stop reading the series and will have to adjust my entire reading list just to put this 2nd book next.
I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading this book and book 2, “Second Chances”, now available on Amazon.