The author states this book is for his kids and I can truly believe that. I’ve read some pretty fantastic stories about how people face being left alone and then begin to save themselves. But, I don’t think I’ve read about any using “nanite goo” to save the day! And our main character, Captain Matthew Fox, used the heck out of a lot of this goo! Now the other thing about this book is that of course you can’t just go around with a name like “Fox”, that’s not snappy enough. So of course, this starship Captain who has done all the grinding steps necessary to reach this command level wants to be known by his fighter pilot nickname, “Foxfire”! I don’t think any self-respecting starship Captain would ever want to be called that by his crew. I could be wrong, by nicknames belong to fighter jockeys and nobody that I know of would ever call their Captain by his nickname no matter what it is!
So the Colonial Wars and been over for ten years now and there wasn’t much going on as far as Captain Fox knew until he was told to report to Earth High Command for new orders. Those orders told him he was going to the Gamma Sector. That sector hadn’t been explored in a long time, but two colony ships had just gone there exploring and now they were not being heard from. In fact the last time someone heard from either ship indicated that they were being attacked by unknown ships! High Command had tended to view this as a prank intercept since they couldn’t conceive of anyone in that region of space having the capability to attack an Terran Benevolence League ship. And yeah, that’s what Earth’s government calls itself, Terran Benevolence League. I’ll gladly use TBL, what a dumb name. Anyway, even though Hight Command didn’t put much belief in anyone attacking one of TBLs ships, they were going to send Captain Matthew Fox and the brand new starship, *Liberty*, out to investigate!
Now the *Liberty* was one of the first new ships built in the last ten years and it wasn’t even tested yet. It was supposed to have some advanced “light armor” and vastly improved weapons, also not tested yet. But High Command thought this would be a great time to use this new ship to prove it could get the job done even if it was by itself! Of course, Captain Fox, to his credit thought this was absurd! No one knew what exactly happened out there so why just send one ship. And there was also the possibility that this was a trap by someone or something yet unknown to High Command. But HQ had become complacent over the last ten years, no real new innovations had been taking place because they didn’t see that the IBL had any more enemies in space! Of course most of space hadn’t been explored, but that wasn’t a concern to HQ, just the disappearance of these last two colony ships.
So, Captain Fox and the *Liberty* set out to investigate. The *Liberty* did have one new thing aboard which was going to take some getting used to. It was the ship’s AI, called “Computer”, that practically ran the ship on its own. Fox wasn’t one to shy away from innovation even if it was something as remarkable as this AI, but he didn’t like the fact that it seemed to be listening and observing everything he and his crew did. Oh, he could give it commands which it obeyed immediately, but he just wasn’t sure if this was the way of the future. Yet, if this new AI helped him complete his mission, then that’s what he’d use.
They had just engaged the jump drives and were preparing to come out of jump space so the crew automatically went to battlestations! Once they arrived back in normal space, dead ahead of them were the two colony ships, or at least what was left of them! Captain Fox attempted to communicate with both ships, but one was truly dead while the other might have someone alive aboard but unable to communicate. So shuttles were prepared and the away teams were ready to launch. The *Liberty* scanners had not detected any other vessels in the space around the two derelict ships nor anything approaching the *Liberty*. So, the away teams shuttles were sent and were just about to attach themselves to the first ship when all heck broke loose!
At this point you’re going to start reading about the DNC (Dual Nation Coalition ). These are the “bad guys” in this book. They have suddenly appeared and are now tearing into the away team shuttles while launching missiles at the *Liberty*. It should be noted that these missiles are a lot more powerful than anything previously fired at a TBL ship. So, this “light armor” of the *Liberty* didn’t put up much of a fight. It didn’t take long before Captain Fox had to order his new ship abandon. All his crew had to get into their escape capsules and get away from the ship. Then, with absolute terror, Captain Fox watches as these ships of the DNC start blowing up the unprotected and unarmed escape capsules! Someone has to get word back to Earth that a new enemy has appeared and that it has no morals.
Captain Fox is still aboard the *Liberty* so he directs the AI to guide his ship into an asteroid field and straight towards a huge asteroid. He believes that his will utterly destroy his ship so that nothing remains, even the AI, which he knows cannot fall into enemy hands. Yet, while the ship does crash, he wakes up on the bridge seemingly uninjured. He also realizes that his enemy did not follow him into the asteroid field and has in fact, left the area. His ship’s AI still seems to be intact so he begins asking it what he should do. It now tells him that he must build his own rescue ship so he can get away from this wreck. The DNC will surely come back to salvage the ship and attempt to extract the AI so they need to be gone.
This is where Captain Fox and his AI start using their nanite goo gun to build some fantastic stuff. You won’t believe what this single man and his AI, whom he names, ALIE, can accomplish. I’ll be reading more to find out just how much this goo gun can do. It’s truly amazing!
The series will continue I suppose but there isn’t a second book identified on Amazon as of the date of this review.
==[Note: As of 12/03/2023, this will not be published on Amazon since I have been banned from posting reviews for some unknown reason. Once the ban is lifted, assuming it does get lifted, I’ll go back and post this to Amazon.]==