First book I’ve read by this author and it’s a good one. This is the beginning of a series and I think it’s going to be an outstanding series if this is an example of the author’s writing.
You’re introduced to a very young man who was brought up in a very rigid environment. Raised in an orphanage until he was old enough to join or be inducted into the Solus Hegemony military, Private Noah Rivers was going into his first combat aboard a dropship with one-hundred and twenty other Hegemony soldiers. They were taught the basics of modern warfare, given equipment built by the lowest bidder and stuff into this dropship for deployment on a planet with no name.
Noah was scared. Everybody was scared except for may Sergeant Fitzgerald, his platoon sergeant. Fitzgerald didn’t want to be where he was at and didn’t really care about the men under him as long as they preformed as he wanted. And what he wanted was for the them to get killed while he stay alive if it comes to a battle. They set foot on this new planet unopposed and start moving out across the sand. Not long afterwards they encounter a cave with what appears to be a gatling gun emplaced right at its opening. The gun and its crew start spraying bullets and most of the Hegemony soldiers like Noah start diving for cover. Well, they did so until Sergeant Fitzgerald orders them to charge directly into the deadly machine gun!
Noah follows orders even though he doesn’t understand why they are wasting good manpower. He figures they’re going to need these guys if this is the kind of opposition they’re going face. Noah is one of the few that makes it past the machine gun emplacement and he believes he might have even shot one of the individuals manning the gun. To him, the being behind the gun look like some kind of neanderthal, all long hair and very rough looking. As what’s left of the platoon continues to march into the cave, the floor suddenly gives way and they drop quite a distance down into a tunnel. It seems this would be an idea time that his unit gets attacked which it does. They are receiving fire from several directions and returning fire as well as they can and with as few Hegemony soldiers they have left. After a while, the shooting dies down. Most of the platoon has been killed. There’s only one other soldier besides Noah still standing plus Sergeant Fitzgerald.
Then the soldier Private Noah Rivers felt a great stabbing in his side. He was finding it hard to breathe. He looked around to see where the shot had came from only to see the Private next to him get a bullet through his head. Noah followed that shot back to its source which turns out to have come from Sergeant Fitzgerald’s sidearm! He says that he’s going to get promoted and a medal for being the sole survivor of this battle and that’s only going to happen if these two privates die like they were supposed to. So Noah dies and is reported Killed in Action in 4012.
Only, he’s not dead. He wakes up to some huge grizzled guy standing over him asking him if he’s awake. He tries to move but the pain in his side is still there but not as bad as it was. He eventually finds out that he’s been fixed up by a tall giant of a many who he learns later is just called “History”. He’s also in the caves and tunnels of the indigenous people of this planet who call themselves the Kilmori. Noah Rivers now begins his life anew under the tutelage of a man called History. He learns the Kilmori ways and gets to train to be a Kilmori warrior. He soon learns that most everything he was taught by the Hegemony was wrong. He also finds out he’s really, really ignorant of the universe and how it operates.
But, he’s also decided that he will have his vengeance on Sergeant Fitzgerald, one way or another, and one day the Solus Hegemony will pay for what they do to the Kilmori and their home planet.
A very good start to an excellent new series. I look forward to book 2, “Dagger’s Edge” now available on Amazon.