Well, this final book in this 6 book set kind of wrapped everything up. But first we get a slightly new character in Captain Dakota Baird. Now it seems this guy was familiar to Miranda Lee, but I don’t remember if the name has ever been brought up. Still, he apparently was part of her mercenary army that was never used. He did something that got him kicked out of that army, so he turn to piracy. He had a crew that had managed to score some booty, but now he was sitting on their biggest payday ever, or so his crew thought.
But, right now they were on Dillion Waystation way out near nothing. This place was ran by a former pirate named Dillon Bar. Dakota and his crew were resting up waiting for the time to make their delivery to the new owner of the QI, the Xiang Zu Corporation. They had stolen the QI from a Mars ship transporting it to New World One. Neither the Xiang Zu Corporation nor the VanHeilding Corp. wanted this device operational. So, they had agreed to pay whomever delivered it to them a sizable bounty. Except, being a pirate, nothing was ever enough. Still, Dillon Bar, the waystation owner knew that Dakota was responsible for stealing the QI. That was going to cause a lot of problems to anyone around Dakota or his ship which happened to be dock to his waystation. So, he quietly told Dakota to get him, his crew and his ship far away from his waystation!
So, Dakota complied. But, his crew were getting anxious about why they hadn’t gotten rid of the device by now. Come to find out, Dakota had reneged no the original deal and had demanded twice the original offer for the QI from the Xiang Zu Corp. Of course that had put an even bigger bounty on this ship since the Xiang Zu Corp was not mad at him and was going to take the QI by force once they or whomever caught him. But, then Dakota had to admit to his crew why he was not taking the original offer and what he really intended to do with the QI. His crew didn’t like what they heard so the next thing that happened saw Dakota thrown into one of his holding cells and his former XO taking command.
Now this is just the beginning of everything. Luca Lee-McNabb had taken the VanHeilding starship, *Daedalus*, and had headed straight for New World One where she new Frederick VanHeilding had setup his HQ once he and the Xiang Zu Corporations had taken over the huge facility. She was going to kill VanHeilding even if it meant her death. But, it was a long trip from Mars to New World One even with a custom built luxury starship. She had time to think and that’s what she did. She slowly developed a possible plan that would not only end Frederick VanHeilding, but would also end his corporation and bankrupt all the corporation assets. To implement her plan, she needed to head for Earth, so she stopped her mad rush toward New World One and turned around. Frederick saw this abrupt change and he heaved a heavy sight of releif.
Meanwhile, Dakota Baird had managed to regain control of his pirate ship with a few less crew-men than he had before and they were now going to Elektra, a menagerie of floating space stations around four large asteroids. Dakota had a brother there and some of his crew also had family so this was where he want to make a stand against the Xiang Zu Corp. He had decided that he could not let the QI fall into the hands of either of these evil corporations. The remaining crew felt the same by now, but they decided to stop at Gyzer Waystation just prior to getting to Elektra. Dakota then contacted Miranda asking if she would consider helping him and his crew get the QI installed at Elektra.
Miranda was shocked that this guy, Dakota, would ever contact her again, especially asking for help. But, once he explained what he wanted to do, Miranda gathered Scott, Cyrus and several Mars security forces and headed to Gyzer Waystation. Cyrus didn’t think he could get the QI operational on Elektra. There just wasn’t the infrastructure that was required. But, they also knew the only other place that could be installed was New World One and it was firmly under the control of Frederick VanHeilding. It wasn’t long that the Xiang Zu forces that were preparing to wipe-out all the rift-raft around Elektra realized where the QI was being held. They took three combat ships with the intent to finally secure the QI for the Xiang Corporation.
Fortunately, with the help of the QI Athena, Luca’s plan was coming together on Earth. She didn’t want it executed until she was ready. So, it was put on hold and Luca once again took off for somewhere else. Where she goes is going to be good.
The end of the story does have another revelation that hasn’t been written about in the book. It’s something the QI’s have been working on and kind of solves some problems, but then again, doesn’t. I did enjoy this series although some of the actions of the main characters were pretty stupid at times, but that’s part of making a story exciting, I guess. Luca wasn’t especially a strong character until she finally had to be. I don’t know if there will ever be anything more to Luca’s story, but I guess there could be. You know she’s has enhance DNA so her life will be much longer than normal. Could be interesting.