This is one of the most complex books I have read in a long time. There is so much scientific explanation going on about how the Starship Arcadia works and what is happening to the crew that it’s very hard to read. Also, there are at least two story-lines going on and they don’t come together until the very end. I will have to admit that I read book 1 way back in July 2024 so I was kind of fuzzy on what had happen. Apparently, I missed a lot at the end of that book or just can’t remember much of what happened. Captain Scott Moore was the captain of the Earth ship USS Atlanta until it was destroyed. They managed to get the craft down and the crew abandoned ship on the planet Kahwin. The USS Atlanta was the first FTL ship or it was supposed to be. They didn’t even know if the FTL engines would work as designed so their first trip was something of a shake-down cruise.
Well, the FTL engine did work only they meet some immediately hostile aliens that knocked the ship out of FTL into a region of space near the planet Kahwin. Since the destruction of the Atlanta, Captain Scott Moore and some of his original crew have been looking for another ship. This new ship was an alien ship of immense capabilities such that most of the inhabitants of Kahwin thought it was just a fantasy. But, Captain Moore had information leading him to believe the alien ship was buried somewhere near the North Pole on Kahwin. So he set out on an expedition to find that ship.
The journey was not easy and we find that several members of his exploration party have died due to the terrible cold and miserable conditions. They are now close to running out of supplies, have encountered unexpected difficulties with all the ice and snow and are just about to the point of turning around. Yet Captain Moore won’t quit. He’s convinced that the ship exists and that it is somewhere near their current location. That’s when a gigantic upheaval knocks those remaining of the expedition off their feet. Something has risen from deep under ground and that something appears to be a huge, impossibly huge spaceship that now hangs several hundred feet in the air. Now their problem is how do they get into that ship when it’s so far above them.
Well, the ship seems to be responding to Captain Moore and once he mentally considers their situation and that getting on the ship is the only way they are to survive, the ship settles to the ground with an open door allowing them to board. Now Captain Moore’s crew isn’t large and has gotten smaller on this expedition. He has the basic bridge crew that he’s used for years on the Atlanta so they all know their way around a starship, but this ship is huge. It dwarfs anything he or any human has ever seen and could be crewed by thousand and thousands of people. It is a self sustaining ship in that it can manufacture everything it needs including foods, spare parts and other items. Yet, Captain Moore realizes that he doesn’t have the necessary numbers of people to properly man this huge starship.
Still, they meet with two entities, Gisele, a woman Captain Moore had known back in Paris on Earth, and a man name Michael. Neither should have been here, especially Gisele. Michael spoke for the starship although he wouldn’t admit to such. Gisele didn’t actually know why she was here and didn’t know much about Earth other than Scott and her had had a relationship. She gave Captain Moore a tour of the ship, well as much of it as she and he could stand. There are several areas of the ship that have been shut off for unknown years since no crew was aboard. Yet, every member of Captain Moore’s current crew had enough room for each to have their own state room. So, now he’s going to find out if he can get this ship back to Earth.
Meanwhile, since Captain Moore left the capital of the planet Kahwin, Zoe, an artificial being, has taken to training a young man name Kol Washington. She is going to train him in all sorts of warfare and combat. He’s nothing special as far as a physical man, but he has some latent mental abilities that will prove very useful in the future. How his story fits into the rest of the book eventually gets told but not until the end.
Any, the new/old alien ship is renamed the Arcadia and Michael tells Captain Moore that he, Moore is in fact the Captain of the Arcadia, but that it must go to a place called Eos for repairs and re-outfitting. They may also more crew to man the ship at this location. So off they go. Here’s where you get deluged with all the technicalities of how this ship operates. Some of it is just overwhelming and I’m not sure why they go into such details.
I’m not certain that I will read the next book in this series. I have better books to read on my list. But for those still interested, book 3, “Jump Trap”, is available on Amazon now.