Now this is my kind of book. It starts from the beginning and takes a young man through his military training up to becoming a somewhat capable operative. And it ties into the Omega Forceseries which was very, very good. In that series, a guy name Jason Burke, became a rouge operator with a mixed team of aliens. They set out to do good for the galactic community although their idea of good wasn’t always the majority opinion. Read that series if you want a good story. It’s out to ten books now, so you have a lot of reading to do.
Back to this book, our main character is Jacob Brown. He’s a young man who grew up with his Grandparents on Earth before the first aliens appeared. Those aliens made some demands about wanting a single human named Jason Burke, which Earth had no idea who or how to get him. Still, Jason Burke had been to Earth at least a few times and enough times that he had a son, yes, Jacob Brown. Since the name Burke was not one well accepted by humans, Jacob has his name changed to Brown. He also listened to too many stories painting his Dad as some kind of villain wanted by all Earth Forces. Due to a government cover-up, his Dad was actually far from a villain and probable the greatest spacefaring asset Earth had, but certainly not to Jacob.
So as soon as he could, young Jacob enlisted in the United Earth Armed Services (UEAS) with intentions on becoming a Naval Officer. He dreamed of commanding a huge starship as it sailed through space. He surprisingly did very well on the battery of test he had to take and was soon approached with an offer to attend the Academy on Terranovus. It looked like his dreams were about to come true, eventually.
At the Academy he did well with a few exceptions. He seemed to be borderline in character while doing well in academics and exceedingly well with the physical aspects of his training. In fact, he eventually came to the attention of the Naval Special Operations Command (NAVSOC) and one Captain Webb. As an offspring of his interesting Father, Jacob had inherited a number of improved genes which allowed him to do a number of things normal humans could not do. Jacobs Dad, Jason Burke, had been genetically altered in a good way by the physician on his Omega Force Team. Those augmentations often kept Jason Burke alive and now they were passed down to his son. Jacob was told by his Grandparents that this might happen and was also told that he shouldn’t use his special talents except in extraordinary circumstances. Yet, he had done things while in training at the Academy which, unknown to him, were video recorded. So, Captain Webb wanted Jacob’s talents for the NAVSOC.
The only condition with this immediate promotion to Lieutenant and reassignment was that Jacob had to agree to go into the Marine Corps! Since they wanted him to be an operative in the field, he couldn’t do that as a Naval Officer. They did tell him that eventually he could go back to the Navy and some day stand watch on a starship bridge just like he dreamed of, but now the Nave needed him for something else.
This leads to the rest of the story where young Lieutenant Jacob Brown is thrown into a highly classified mission under the leadership of Lieutenant Commander Ezra Mosler, a highly experienced Black Ops team leader. Now it begins only not in the way expected. While Jacob is made second in command of the team, something happens which forces him to step-up in a big way!
A very good story with a lot of twist that I really didn’t see until they happened. I think this series will turn out to be just as good as Omega Force, or at least I hope so.