I really like the way Rick Partlow writes his stories. They are always military science fiction and do it right even if there are civilians (scientists) along for the ride. This book starts off in Mexico with some Force Recon Marines doing a joint operations with Mexican Marines. They were intermixed so Sgt. Brent Parker has a few Mexican Marines in his squad along with more in Bravo Company, First Force Recon.
They were going in against a cartel searching through several warehouses that probably contained illegal drugs or illegal weapons. They had just spotted what appeared to be a missile platform on the roof of one of the warehouses and his squad was assigned to take it out. They had choppers coming in with Army Ranger types in support and needed to make a safe LZ. That was the plan until it went to hell very quickly. Apparently, the Mexican Marines were more interested in getting paid by the cartel than keeping their honor.
But, Force Recon Marines don’t just play at being good, they are good and this bunch of turncoats didn’t prevent Sgt. Parker and his other Force Marines from taking them out once they showed which side they were on. He also realized that there were more of the cartel armed thugs around the warehouse than previously advertised. In other words, this was a setup from the get go. The only problem for Sgt. Parker was that there weren’t any other available Senior NCOs or Officers with him and he needed to get the job done and now. So, he takes charge and gets the rest of the Force Recon Marines that are still functioning to secure an LZ and get those Army Ranger choppers in to clean this mess up.
Meanwhile, back at the White House, the President and a number of his advisors were discussing something that came straight out of a science fiction book. An object not of this Earth, had just appeared in the plane of the ecliptic out near Jupiter. Yet it wasn’t being influenced by Jupiter’s gravity, but was in a gentle orbit around the Sun. It appeared to be power, but how, no one had a clue. Dr. Victoria Morales was briefing the President on this object and would eventually be doing much, much more.
Right now the object appeared to be heading around the Sun and then back out into interstellar space. It wasn’t giving off any kind of signal, radiation or anything else. In fact, they couldn’t figure out how it was even moving on its own trajectory. All they had now were pictures from the Webb telescope and a few from some classified surveillance satellites. Everyone was fine with the fact that it wasn’t headed towards Earth, so the decision was to closely monitor it while considering the fact that they now had proof that Earth was not alone in the universe. Some intelligence has sent this probe or whatever our way and we might never know why. It could be just remotely piloted or be piloted by an AI and not even concerned with finding other life.
So, how does this affect Sgt. Parker? Well, it wasn’t too much longer after the debacle in Mexico that Sgt. Parker and his Squad were waiting around being interrogated about their mission when they were told that they had a new mission, but on a voluntary basis. It seems that the alien object had change trajectory and was now headed, not for Earth, but for Mars. So, everyone, which means the Russians, Chinese and the Americans had to get there first to find out if this object contained any new technology, which it much have or it wouldn’t have gotten this fare in its travels. The USA was definitely going to send a contingent of scientists to Mars and along with them would be a detachment of Force Recon Marines. Sgt. Parker had volunteered to go and was surprised when he found out that every member of his squad had also volunteered. That didn’t happen with the rest of the company.
So, that’s what this book is about. It’s a race to Mars between the Soviets and the Chinese although the latter two have to team up since neither has the capacity at this time to send such a mission on their own. The Russians have a very experimental space craft that has been banned from going into space because of its particular type of nuclear engine, while the Chinese has the technical skill and the nuclear material that would be used to fuel the spaceship, so that’s why they team up.
The USA is going ahead with its planned mission to Mars only at an accelerated pace. They are also going to have to be very careful because all the other nations of Earth are apparently not happy that the American aren’t sharing the trip. So, Sgt. Brent Parker is going to have to survive an attack against the very starship he’s going to ride to Mars, but he’s also probably going to be fighting Russians when they also get there. If those are the only hostiles he has to face, that might not be so bad since he’s trained for this. But, he’s going to be fighting a lot more than what he expects.
A very good start to what should be a very good series. I’ve already downloaded the next book aptly titled, “World War Mars 2”. It’s available on Amazon.