I knew this series was going to be great! After forming the Omega Force in book one, they are now about a year later having ironed out some of their purposes and goals. That sounds kind of formal for a bunch of guys who would rather fight than sit around and talk about stuff. But, the knew they couldn’t just go do anything out here in the galaxy, so they decided to start helping those that can’t help themselves. These are the good guys, make no mistake about it. Jason Burke has now been made Captain of the Phoenix and his crew are all for him. They know he’s got their best interest at heart and that he wouldn’t do anything that might get them all killed. Well, maybe he wouldn’t.
In this book, they’re looking for work. Something that will keep the Phoenix running while paying the bills for fuel and supplies. Right at the start, they have been hired to rescue a politician and his family from the planet Corran. They don’t know exactly what kind of rescue this will be, but they are ready for just about anything. Jason has received some intel from those that have hired him, so he knows that the politicians family home is now under guard by the opposing political party security detail. His plan is to pose as one of the security details on relieve those currently on duty and then transport the target family to the Phoenix. Once landing, without crashing, everything looks to be set for this operation. It goes smoothly until he tries to put his plan to work and then everything goes south.
It’s not that the plan was bad, it’s just that he should have done some of his own intel gathering when they got to the planet before assuming his sources had everything right. Lesson learned the hard way. Still, the do rescue the politicians family without any casualties. They land on another planet, Eshquaria Prime, to drop off their passengers and then plan to wait for some other job. It turns out that this politician is well connected to Prime Minister Colleston. One thing leads to another and the crew is welcomed as guest of the Prime Minister and requested to attend a reception for the Senator whom they just rescued. And, since they haven’t been paid yet, they agreed with Mr. Kross, Chief of Staff, to attend.
It turns out that only Doc and Lucky make the reception. Crusher just scares people so he didn’t want to go, Kage is small and doesn’t like crowds, and Twingo, the Chief Engineer of the Phoenix, just doesn’t like social events. Mr. Kross wants Captain Burke to me a Mr. Dalton Crisstof, who does indeed have some work for the Omega Force.
So, now they are employed by Mr. Crisstof who seems to have a very close working relationship with the Corranian military. He introduces Captain Burke and his partial crew to Captain Kellea Colleen, Commander of the frigate Diligent. The Omega Force then enter into an agreement that will keep them busy for quite some time. This job is not directly tied into their preferred jobs of helping the little guy, but in the long run, it will do the same. Corran has been plagued by pirates and raiders, but the Corranian military can’t figure out where they are coming from. It’s up to the Omega Force to infiltrate this murderous bunch and find out where they are operating from and who’s directing their operations. Oh, they are to try and not get killed.
Another very good military science fiction story. The writing is very fluid. On my Kindle. I did notice that there were no Chapter breaks, which is kind of strange. Usually, a chapter ends and then starts on a new page. This was not the case for this book. Also, it’s strange that a lot of single apostrophes are turned into double quotes even in contractions. None of this distracts from the reading, it’s just something that might need to be reviewed in editing. Oh, and on a positive note, the book covers for this one and book three are outstanding!
And once again, I’m already well into the third book, “Savage Homecoming” and enjoying it just as much as I did the first to. Highly recommended series.