Well, I don’t usually read short stories, but the author asked so I though I’d give it a shot. It’s certainly not a very long book, but it gives a good background explanation of what took place before the first book in the series.
Kraken is a colony planet of Earth. Earth has settled the solar system and expanded beyond in to an Empire. Yet, the home squabbles still exist on Earth. The North American Union (NAU) is fighting a war against the China Trans-Asia Coalition (CTAC) and both are doing badly. So bad that they are taking personnel and material from the colonies without asking.
This story shows how bad that action is against relatively unarmed transports doing their normal trade business. It’s kind of shocking that what they (NAU) do is pretty brutal. You just know that the colony can’t stand for this much longer, but they are forbidden from developing their own technology so they can field their own high tech starships.
So, that’s it. This is why the first book came to be and it’s a very good series. Some very good writing and editing. I think you’ll enjoy this short book and the rest of the series.