This is an interesting book although it kind of follows an expected sting of events. We start off with a court-martial! Yes, our main character, Commander Owen Shaw, is on trial for Mutiny! Well, that’s a pretty serious charge. We don’t get to go through all of the trial, we’re just waiting for Judges of the Confederation Space Guard to announce their verdict. Of course, if Commander Shaw is found guilty, then his career is over. In fact, he’ll be starting a new career as a prisoner in some military prison which might not make for a very good story.
How did we get here. Well, he did something that no officer of any rank wants to do, he relieved his commanding officer during the middle of a wartime engagement. Now, of course, according to Shaw, he had ample reason to do what he did. Even though the ship he was serving on as the Executive Officer (XO) was engaged in a war with the Dominion. You’ll eventually get all the details during the story, but this is not the way you want to start a new book, but it’s been done before.
Now of course Commander Owen Shaw was found “not guilty”. What he did was prevent his Captain from committing a certain criminal act of war which would have led to the death of thousands of civilians. So our story continues as does the career of Commander Shaw. But, just what kind of career is he going to have. He soon finds out that he’s been assigned to a new ship and surprisingly, it’s a big ship, a battleship! He’s back to being the XO but now he’ll serve on the *CSS Resolution*. Of course, this isn’t all good news.
His new posting puts him as far away as possible from Confederation HQ and Earth as possible. His former commander, Captain Turner had a lot of friends in high places and while he couldn’t avoid the court-martial he received, he was pulling strings to make sure Command Shaw paid for what Captain Turner definitely thought was mutiny. Commander Shaw realized that the *CSS Resolute* was stationed in the Obsidian Sector, the farthest reach of space that humanity had gone that bordered on the Pendragon Empire. That sector had been quiet for a long time. Nothing of significance ever went on in that sector of space so it was kind of a dumping grounds for officers and crew that were not considered cream of the crop. He figured this was about as good assignment as he’d ever get, but it was going to probably come with a lot of discipline problems.
So, he joins his new ship which is docked at Confederation Starbase Morrigon (a.k.a. Morrigon Station). He soon finds out that the battleship, *CSS Resolute* has been docked at the station for quite some time. Then he meets his new Captain, Captain Margot Torres, and the initial meeting didn’t go very well. She basically met him as he was coming aboard and while welcoming him to his new ship, her ship, she made it clear that his presence was not welcomed! But, Commander Shaw kind of expected that kind of welcome. Still, he didn’t know how the rest of the crew was going to welcome him, but he was soon to find out.
What he finds is a Captain that has become very relaxed in everything she does. She’s enjoying being the Captain of a battleship that never goes into battle. Captain Torres wants to be friends with all her crew not their commanding officer. This has lead to a very noticeable in the lack of discipline across the entire ship. Even the Tactical Officer, Lieutenant Commander Petrea, seemed to hold a grudge against Cmdr Shaw. She was definitely not pleased to see him on the bridge. So, Owen Shaw has a job to do and that is whip this crew back into fighting shape, if the Captain will even let him. She grudgingly allowed Owen to run a battlestations drill which went off terribly bad as Shaw had expected. It seemed that most of the crew just didn’t care and would prefer to be on the Station rather than on this ship.
And Captain Torres warned Owen that he wasn’t about to take command of this ship under no circumstances. She was going to watch him to make sure and if she felt he was getting out of line and not following her orders to the letter, she would willingly throw him in the brig! And that’s how the rest of this book goes, except things are going to change in the Obsidian Sector.
Something or someone is encroaching on the Obsidian Sector. Things are happening in the “neutral zone” and those things are going to spread into the Obsidian Sector very soon. Will the *CSS Resolute* be ready! Read to find out.
More will come in the second book, “Operation Icarus”, now available on Amazon.
==[Note: As of 12/03/2023, this will not be published on Amazon since I have been banned from posting reviews for some unknown reason. Once the ban is lifted, assuming it does get lifted, I’ll go back and post this to Amazon.]==