This is the second book I’ve read with the main character named Carson Mach. He’s quite a character, although he isn’t as dangerous or as bad as his past seems to make him sound. In the previous book, “The Atlantis Ship”, Carson comes to the rescue of the Common Wealth from a ship that’s impossible to find and defeat. He does this job masterfully and manages to get all of his past debts paid off. Since he left the Common Wealth Defense Forces, Mach has become a freelancer doing things for customers that aren’t quite illegal but not necessarily legal, either! He’s made some friends and a lot of enemies. But in the previous book, he got a new ship and rounded up a crew that seems to be just what he wanted.
In this book, he’s taken on a new mission, a very, very dangerous mission, for which he will get paid extremely well. HIs ship, the Intrepid, Carson and his crew have to go find an OreCorp mining craft, the Voyager, and find out what happened to her cargo. The Voyager was supposed to be delivering her cargo to the planet Noven Alpha, an abandoned mining planet that is supposed to be uninhabited; supposed to be!
Carson starts out this mission badly. He doesn’t tell his crew the full extent of the mission, namely that the cargo the Voyager was carrying is extremely dangerous. There is a very good chance that he, his ship and his crew might not return from this mission! And the second problem, he finds is that his best friend and toughest crew member, Sanchez, has got some kind of medical problem that he won’t tell anyone about just yet. It is obviously causing Sanchez some problems because he’s not as energetic as before and it seems to be getting worse.
The story line is kind of predictable. Of course the planet that supposed to be uninhabited is just the opposite. The things there are just as dangerous as the cargo his supposed to find. They run into all sorts of problems, but continue to fight their way out. That’s all I’ll say about this mission, but I will let you know that Carson will be around for other missions.
I was surprised that the author spent so much time analyzing the “feelings” of the crew. Carson, especially, gets mushy over his sick friend and constantly worries about his girlfriend, Adria. That’s kind of strange writing when you’re really about killing aliens and blowing up stuff. Still, it makes for a good story if you like the human side of the characters.
I’ll continue reading about Carson Mach because the writing is good and I like the style; not all blood and guts, but predictable.