Alex Racine and his Omnians are at it again. The fleet, with Alex and Rene, are at the Ollassa system. This is the home system of one of the weirder aliens that Alex has helped in the past. The Ollassa are plant people! Yes, you probably remember them from their brief appearance in “Vinium”. The don’t actually “talk”, but have a way to communicate to Alex just like every other race seems to do.
They have contacted the Omnians to ask for help. The Ollassa are very benign, but they do have some armed spacecraft which they sent to attack and unknown starship which had started harvesting minerals from the Ollassa asteroids. To do so without the permission of the system inhabitants is paramount to war. Yet, after the initial attack, which wasn’t successful at all, the aliens did nothing more, but continue to harvest minerals. The Ollassa didn’t know how to handle the situation so they called for their friend, Alex!
Alex and his team immediately set out to find out who these new aliens were and what they were doing. They might not have known this system belonged to another race, yet they should have when they were attacked. From observing the operations of the remote mining equipment and numerous drones hovering over them, it was believed that this was all ran by an AI with no human or alien involved. And, this AI and these new people he represented appeared to be at least as technologically advanced as the Omnians or maybe even more so. Alex really didn’t want to tangle with them.
So this story is about how, once again, Alex Racine and his Omnians solve the problems between two very different species and reach a solution that eventually helps both parties. They also find another highly advanced AI named “Vyztram”. He was about equal to Julien, an Omnian SADE, yet he wasn’t mobile. He was confined to the starship, Arcus, was in his care as well as the Elvians who lived aboard the starship. The biggest problem facing Alex is that the leader of the Elvians is one single very young Elite named “Deloy”. Actually, that was her title and that’s what everyone called her. She was and is spoiled rotten and expects everything to be done for her at her demand. This includes commanding a very powerful and deadly starship! Alex has some major work to do in this book.
Again, this is great writing. Mr. Jucha shows how things can get done without the need to fight even if the two or three parties don’t agree on everything. Compromise is the way to go and everyone lives long lives or so that’s how it’s been working out to date. I don’t know how long Mr. Jucha can continue this series, but I do know there will be another book titled, “Q-Gates” coming soon!