After fifteen books in a series, you’d think I would like the story-line. Well, I do no that the Cas’cadas are getting their butts whipped! It’s been a long time coming, but it look like the Human Empire (plus their alien allies) are making some great strides into Cas’cadas territory. While their Empire is huge, their new, young emperor is an idiot and that helps.
This story moves to the other side of the Cas’cadan Empire where the Nation of New Earth and the genetically modified humans and a few allies have been fighting the Cas’cadas pretty much to an even stand-still. These Nation of New Earth humans are being greatly assisted by assets from Emperor Sean Ogden Lee Romanov who has just assigned Grand Fleet Admiral Beata Bednarczyk and her augmented fleet to this second front. It was hoped that with these new assets, the New Earth alliance could push further into Cas’cadan territory and cause them to have to split their assets between two fronts, weakening both!
Yet, compromises are what alliances are made of, for the most part. The Nation of New Earth already has a Grand Fleet Admiral in charge of all fleet assets in the Empire. He naturally wants to command anything that is fighting for his empire just as would any grand fleet admiral. So, it’s made very clear early on that Grand Fleet Admiral Bednarczyk will be subordinate to Grand Fleet Admiral Jrasstra Klanarat, a Klavarta Alpha. That’s not all that unexpected, but his first thoughts are to spread Admiral Bednarczyk’s units out among his leaving her with nothing much to command and staying back at the Nation of New Earth capital. That idea obviously doesn’t go over well with Admiral Bednarczyk and she says so in front of the Nation of New Earth President. He is somewhat smarter than his Admiral, but knows that unity of command is important, but he only goes as far as telling his Admiral that he will not separate the Empires assets, but use them to support his ops while they are still under Bednarczyk’s command.
So, command arrangement have been made and a new situation is created in the Nation of New Earth. Meanwhile, the Cas’cas have been doing some strategic planning on their own. They need to finish one of these fronts off and soon. So, the Cas’cadan emperor directs on of his Great Admirals to take as much assets as they can spare and go defeat the Nation of New Earth immediately. Once that’’s done, those assets and everything else the Cas’cadan empire has will be focused on a single enemy and a single front. Fortunatley for the Cas’cas, this new Great Admiral is somewhat smart, but not a fan of the young idiot emperor.
And most unfrotunately, the Nation of New Earth Grand Admiral isn’t very bright! He thinks he knows exactly what this new Cas’cadan force will be doing and where to hit them the hardest. His plan doesn’t work at all and now the Nation of New Earth faces a real threat. Can Grand Fleet Admiral Bednarczyk save them all? She better!