Sometime after destroying the Starkad Supremacy heavy cruiser over Terminus Cut, Logan Conner, alias Jonathan Slaughter, and his Slaughter Company, left Terminus heading back to Sparta. This was expected in that the mission wasn’t complete until he reported back to his father, Lord Guardian. In the meantime, and for some inexplicable reason, they left a small detachment of technicians and scientist at Terminus Cut. They were to continue studying the vast warehouses of equipment and going through the considerable amount of computer data available. One of those staying behind was Terrin Brannigan, Logan’s younger brother, and second son of Lord Guardian. I guess they thought that it would be safe to leave the place since everyone of the Starkad Supremacy soldiers had been killed either on the ground on in the starship.
Now, of course, you know that didn’t happen. There was a young Starkad Captain by the name of Ruth Laurent who had managed to escape stowed away on the very advanced starship Logan’s people had found inside a huge cavern in Terminus Cut. This ship was huge and had a lot of storage spaces that someone could easily have stay hidden until the ship eventually docked some place for whatever reason. And that’s what Captain Laurent did until she was able to book passage on another ship taking her back to Starkad space and Lord Aaron Starkad, Overseer of the Supremacy. She had been terribly hurt in an explosion outside the cave where all the advanced tech had been found, but she managed to crawl her way into a drop shuttle and then onto the starship which just means that the Supremacy now knows the location of Terminus Cut.
Now instead of taking a single heavy cruiser, the Supremacy brings a whole bunch of military assets desiring to capture Terminus Cut for themselves. The few remaining Spartan people made a hasty evacuation knowing that they had rigged the whole place to explode wiping out everything. Only Terrin and two other people didn’t get the word to evacuate. Considering he’s the son of the Lord Guardian, I’m surprised they left him behind. I mean, who wants to tell the Lord Guardian of Sparta that you left his youngest son behind and saved yourself? Not a good career move, but it was done.
Still, Terry and a computer tech named Francesca Hayden, Franny for short, and Captain Cordova were busy uploading all the data available to data crystals when the evacuation order was given. They didn’t make it to the drop shuttles, but Terrin had discovered another small stardrive ship in a very small tube of the cavern. When the data crystals were full, he and his compatriots fled to that ship with the Supremacy soldiers right behind them. Unfortunately, this ship was very, very small and could accommodate only two people. Terrin and Franny left and the Captain became a prisoner of the Supremacy. When Terrin finally got to a space station called “Trinity” he was able to send a message back to Sparta headquarters to come pick him up.
This leads to the next mission for the Wholesale Slaughter company with Logan Conner, now Lt. Colonel Conner and former Major Lyta Randell, now Colonel Randell, leading the way. This is not going to just be another “milk run” to pick up his brother and come back. Terrin has the data crystals and with the destruction of Terminus Cut, they are very valuable to everyone including the Starkad Supremacy!
Another great read. It seems the story continues in “Maelstrom Strand”, book 4 of the Wholesale Slaughter series. I’m sure it’s going to be great too! Come to find out, there’s three more books including this one. Book 5, “Judas Kiss” and Book 6, “Redemption’s Shadow”. I’m going to get them all.