Another excellent story from this series. As you know from the last book, Captain Jonathan Slaughter, a.k.a. Logan Conner, son of the Lord Guardian has been put in-charge of a very secret mission to find the place/planet called “Terminus Cut”. It’s some where out in the far reaches of space, beyond the five Dominions, but in order to get out there you have cross at least two of those Domininons. They don’t take kindly to people passing through their territory, especially Spartans!
So, Logan Conner has taken on the role of mercenary calling his new “company”, Wholesale Slaughter. Having successfully demonstrated their capabilities agains a band of bandits called “The Red Brotherhood”, Slaughter and company were headed to a new job, one that will take them to the edge of Starkad Supremacy space called the Dagda system. The Starkad Dominion was one of the five Dominions in competition with the Sparta Dominion for scarce resources. All were about evenly matched in technology, but that tech was considerably far behind what had once been the norm in the old Empire. Still, their ultimate objective was beyond Starkad space and to get there they had to build up a legitimate mercenary reputation.
But, this mission was going to be very difficult. Humanity had encountered at least on hostile alien civilization called the Jeuta. While there currently was peace between humanity and the Jeuta, an apparent separate group of Jeuta were out on their own and terrorizing the Dagad system. That system was to far out in nowhere for the Starkad Supremecy to care about so the people of that region had to defend themselves or hire mercenaries. It was going to be a profitable setup for Wholesale Slaughter if the all didn’t die trying to accomplish this contract!
While this was getting started, there was an interesting crew member of the Shakak. He was a Jeuta! That was very unusual since this species didn’t get along with humans very well. But, this one had apparently been abandoned during the war and Captain Osceloa found him in really bad shape, brought him back to health and offered him a position on his ship. The Jeuta knew that his people wouldn’t ever accept him back so he took the job as Chief of Security for the Shakak. Not everyone trusted this Jeuta and now that they were going to have to do battle with a contingent of Jeuta, someone should have probably kept an eye on this one in particular.
Fighting against the Jeuta isn’t going to be like fighting against a band of pirates. These Jeuta were accustomed to warfare and knew how to fight. Jonathan had better have a good plan of attack if he was going to be successful in this mission. He didn’t!
And that is just the beginning of this story. After this mission they now have to head straight through Starkad Supremacy space. As long as Captain Osceloa and the Shakak weren’t on a wanted list, they shouldn’t have a problem passing through customs. Worst case, they’d be asked for a customs inspection, but all their paperwork was in order backed up by the Sparta Intelligence Agency. They were what they said they were and shouldn’t have a problem as long as whomever did the inspection didn’t recognize Jonathan (Logan). Well, someone did, but he wanted to see what they were up to so they were allowed to continue on their mission.
They finally reached Terminus Cut and the mission was quickly coming to an end. Were they going to find a treasure trove of high tech equipment and data to back it up? Possibly, but one thing was known for sure and that was the Supremacy Chief of Intelligence was shadowing them the entire way and now he also knew the location of Terminus Cut!