“Hard Lesson”

We’ve move 50 years in to the future after Steve Stuart and his brothers were captured by some stupid aliens.  As you remember, Steve and his brothers overpowered this grossly inept aliens and found that they didn’t know anything about the ship they were flying nor were they interested in knowing about it or much of anything else.  They were scavengers using ships that were given to them even though the ships didn’t fit their anatomy!  They didn’t know how to use the weapons they had nor were they much inclined to learn.

Therefore Steve and his band of ex-military and CIA types were able to completely take the original ship and then two more when they decided to attack Earth.  Then Steve and his brothers decided to start recruiting people from Earth to set up a new nation on the Moon.  This appealed to a lot of people, not all military types.  So they had to make some rules but their rules were about a simple as they could be.  This new nation wasn’t going to be bogged down with tons of restrictions and regulations like Earth had become.  I like the concept although the author got a little carried away trying to show how bad it was on Earth.  It may or may not get that way and if things hadn’t, the Stuart family might have had a harder time recruiting people.

But, they didn’t and now they are the SOL Alliance spread out to the Moon, Mars and several asteroids.  They were also terraforming Venus and would soon see people living there.  One of the Sol Alliances prime directives if you want to call them that, was they were not going to meddle in Earth’s affairs as long as it didn’t impact the Sol Alliance.  The Alliance had some fantastic advanced technology that would have made things much easier on Earth but they weren’t just going to give it away.  They also needed some kind of support from America but America wanted help in solving the Taliban terrorist problem.  The Alliance managed to spray or drop electronic bugs on just about all the bad guys in the Middle East and then when the time was right, told them to kill their carrier.  Most of the Taliban dropped dead where they stood.  Problem solved.

Ok, that took care of Earth for now.  Another problem showing up for the Alliance was that the greater galactic community was beginning to notice these humans.  They also noted, with alarm, that humans seem to be very innovative and have even advanced some technology that was not though capable of being advanced.  The humans were even building their own starships and were putting weapons on them that had unknown capabilities.  Additionally, the human mercanieries were proving to be too good for the side they fought on.  The balance of a long, long standing war was tilting in the favor of the side using the humans.

The Tokomak, the galaxies greatest and oldest civilization which controlled all know space, were becoming aware of Earth humans and did not like what they were hearing.  They decided to send a fleet to destroy Earth which would end any kind of threat that puny civilization might create in the near future.  Even with their fantastic fleet numbering in the tens of thousands, they didn’t really know who they were going after.  It’s time for the galaxy to lean something new!

Great story covering two books.  You go from alien abduction in the first book to well, you need to read them to find up how Steve Stuart and his brothers finish this up.  It’s pretty exciting all the way through.  Don’t think about how they did it because it’s science-fiction and anything can be done by a sci-fi author!