We’re back with James McGill, Centurion, Legion Varus. Yeah, that guy! He’s managed to stay out of trouble for awhile since the Legion hasn’t gone on a mission for quite sometime. During this downtime, he spends his days in his shack behind his parents home in the “Georgia Sector”. Things are kind of peaceful right now, well, as peaceful as they can be with his, now twelve-year old daughter, Etta around. She’s a very wild child raised for awhile by her Mother, Delia, and Grandfather back on Dust World. We’d call people on that plane savages since there wasn’t much but dust and dirt on the entire world. Being brought back to Earth didn’t change Etta much. She still does what she wants to but does have some grudging respect for James McGill, her Father.
But, this time the peace isn’t exactly shattered by something Etta has done. No, that come in a very strange and frightening way when Primus Graves shows up a this shack door. That’s never happened before and James doesn’t know why in the world it happened now. And, to make matters worse, Primus Graves tells James McGill that he’s sorry but he’s been volunteered for a new mission. Now, Primus Graves have never ever came to McGill for anything other than an explanation of the trouble he’s currently causing. But, since there’s not trouble with the Legion that James knows about right now, he’s terribly cautious about this action on the part of Primus Graves. He is told to report to Central the next day so he assumes he’ll be going on some kind of mission, but Primus Graves didn’t quite mention what that might be; he just apologized for “volunteering” McGill. That sounds pretty dangerous.
So, McGill heads off towards Central HQ where he hopes he’ll get some answers to just what he’s gotten himself “volunteered” for. He doesn’t get far when he’s met by Primus Winslade who’s the Adjunct for Imperator Turov. Why he’s out picking up James McGill is a real mystery and then James finds that all his troops are being picked up. Now he’s really worried about what this mission might entail.
When they get to Central, he’s met by Primus Graves who again seems kind of sorry for McGill and his troops. They are to go through a series of “test” for what reason no one knows, but the winner of these tests will go on the full mission. Strangely, everyone of the brass seems to be indicating to McGill that he and his troops would be better off if they failed these upcoming tests.
But, that’s not the way James McGill has been trained. He’s also learned quite a bit about leading his troops and knows how to handle a bunch of misfits since he was one himself for a long time. Now as a Centurion, he’s responsible for all these misfits and feels it somewhat necessary to keep them alive, unless mission success dictates otherwise.
So, off we go on another strange mission. We don’t even get to the new world, Blood World, before our ship is attacked and James McGill has to step into action. Unfortunately, his action prove to other interested parties that he’s a very skilled and determined warrior. He seems to be the leader of everyone since he’s always at the forefront of every battle. James McGill as the leader of Legion Varus! That’s got to be a mistake. You’ll find out the truth as you read the rest of the story.
I really enjoy reading about James’ daughter, Etta. She is a real brat, but seems to at least get along with James pretty good. She stays with James’ parents most of the time. They are getting along in years and his mother has contacted some kind of fatal disease, but, as usual, James is going to do something about that even thought the government says his parents don’t have any insurance and have no money to pay for a special kind of surgery. But, back to Etta. James is going to have a lot of fun when she starts getting interested in boys, teenage boys. Some how he’s going to have to figure our some way to get a bunch of teenaged boys through a revival machine, because once they tangle with Etta and she doesn’t like their advances, she might just off them for the hell of it. She’s James McGill’s daughter after all. She also has told James that she’s going to join the Legion when she is old enough. That’s going to be frightening for the Legion.
Don’t know when the next book will be released, but I’ll definitely be looking for it.