Another great book in this series. The S.D.F. Jericho is heading into unknown territory led by Captain Zeke Darius. This ship is a very special ship built with alien plans provided by an AI known as GIGI. That AI had sat in space for 30 some years while humans managed to figure out the plans GIGI had sent and then waited for them to get to her/it. Captain Darius wasn’t sure about this entire mission, but he loved his new ship. It didn’t seem to have any problems what-so-ever even thought this mission was the first one it had ever flown. Now that they had the AI GIGI aboard, it was telling them that their mission was much more than they had thought.
Deep in galactic space where humans have never ventured, lies another spaceship more advanced than even the Jericho. It has the firepower that can save the human race from the aliens that current reign over the rest of the galaxy. These Ashi are not the friendly type and have fought thousands of battles over the centuries against all sorts of other alien races. They have always been victorious and now are in complete control of the galaxy. The current Emperor Vang wants no one challenging his authority over the galaxy and is bloodthirsty for any alien civilization that attempts to challenge him. The only reason the humans and Earth are not part of his Empire is because he hasn’t found them yet. That may happen soon.
When the Jericho first met up with the alien artifact they now call GIGI, it was floating in space far out beyond Saturn. Upon approaching the artifact, they didn’t know what to expect so the Captain had ordered his Marine detachment to approach the artifact and eventually bring it aboard the Jericho. The first Marine to touch GIGI was Master Sergeant Remmy Steel. That touch resulted in a melding of the human and artificial mind. MSgt. Steel could now understand and know everything that the alien AI knew while at the same time, it could know everything that was MSgt. Steel. The AI didn’t take over the MSgt. nor did it ever intend to do so. It was just using the Marine NCO as a go-between to the Captain and crew of the Jericho. Yet, the AI named GIGI could easily talk and did so on the bridge of the Jericho where it was installed.
GIGI told Captain Darius that his mission needed to continue so they could retrieve an even more powerful starship named the Renegade. GIGI warned the captain that humanity was not going to stay hidden for very long. The builders of the Renegade had built their ship and hidden it in a dense nebula while at the same time sending out artifacts like GIGI to try and find an advanced race that could man the Renegade and fight back against the Ashi Empire. Without this ship and with Earth’s current technology level, humanity had little chance against the Empire.
Captain Darius thought long and hard about what he was to do. He wanted to return to Earth and let them listen to GIGI so they could tell him or others if it was right to go find this Renegade starship. He knew that Earth probably wouldn’t do anything timely, they would study GIGI to death or get involved in political squabbles over who owned GIGI and any advanced ship they might discover until the Empire was right at their doorstep! So, after careful thought, he decided to continue the mission and find this other powerful starship Renegade.
So, this is the voyage they are on now. It’s amazing that the Jericho doesn’t seem to ever have any kind of maintenance issues. In fact she does have a good sized group of engineers that are definitely bored and getting more bored. They like others used to fixing things have nothing really to do. And the same goes for the Marine detachment. They do get some action when retrieving a power cell for the Renegade and even lose one of their own, but that action has been in the past and now they have an uncertain future.
How will the crew of the Jericho even manage to bring another advanced ship all the way back to Earth. Will they be challenged by someone in the galaxy once they find this strange ship and what about its existing crew. Are they going to willingly give up their ship to what to them will be aliens? There’s a lot to discover in this book and the story will definitely continue.
Book 3, “Juggernaut”, is now available on Amazon. I’ve got it on my reading list.