This kind of complicated book and series seems to be coming to an end. With the French spaceship *Charles de Gaulle*, commanded by Colonel Ader, deciding not to attack the Americans and instead joining them to fight off the latest attack by the Seekers, their victory was assured, this time! Of course this greatly upset the French back on Earth, who were trying to maintain their alliance with the alien Darnot Jus. Darnot Jus was believed that he was betrayed by the French even after his engineers had built them their own fusion reactor and had it up and running. He made his feeling clear when he and his engineers departed the Earth heading back through the war-gate to his home planet.
For General Bradstreet, Colonel Ader, Colonel Lee and all the Marines and scientists still stuck on Mars, this was a time to take a breather. They had Joe, one of the Blessed who decided to awake and converse with the humans, this was a time to fix and repair a lot of damaged equipment. It was also a time for Dr. Victoria Morales to find out more about the Blessed and just what Joe could or would do to help them. For Joe’s part, he was happy for the humans although he hadn’t any real way to express that. Still, he began offering different things that helped the humans to repair and rebuild some of their ships. They scrounged parts from destroyed landers and the Voyager and then set about repairing the US *Morrigan*. Then Joe tolled them to expect more attacks by the various other alien civilizations they had created. These other civilizations were being driven by the Monitor who would eventually show up. Joe didn’t believe these humans could stand against a Monitor so he was advising them to leave.
Then orders came to General Bradstreet to bring back him ship and most of the people that went out on the original Mars mission. He would leave Colonel Lee, his XO, at Mars along with Marine Captain Amanda Skinner and a contingent of Marines, Space Force personnel along with some of the scientists. Dr. Morales was also requested to return. Marine Sergeant Parker was also ordered back to receive his well deserved Medal of Honor. None of these people wanted to leave. They preferred to stay and continue to protect the Visitor spaceship until they could be properly reinforced. No one was sure when that would happen so the orders were given and they began the trip back.
Meanwhile, the Monitor was very displeased with the Seekers who failed to destroy the humans and capture the spaceship they called the Visitor. So, he sought out other civilizations and found the Claw, a saurian species that were built to fight. They also revered the Monitor and couldn’t wait to follow his orders. Still, they were ground forces and had no space capabilities so the Monitor sought out and found the Aerie, a bird like species that had built some very capable spacecraft which they flew like the experts they were. He combined the two species into an attack force that the humans couldn’t not defeat.
Darnot Jus had fled back to his home planet only to find a disaster. The Monitor had glassed his entire planet except for his own home site. He landed on the grass outside his home but as he walked inside he saw that his entire family had been horribly torn to pieces just to show the Monitor’s anger with him. Danot knew he had to flee but where to go? His choice might surprise you.
Again, the human contingent at Mars has been reduced. Still the Monitor was gathered its forces for another attack and this one would be much more massive than any of the previous. In fact, the Monitor was personally going to oversee this battle to ensure his forces were victorious. Unfortunately, Joe still insisted that he could not use the ship to attack any of what he called his “children”. This would definitely doom the Mars contingent and they knew after that the Monitor and his minions would head to Earth.
Ok, so I think this book ends the series, but I’m not sure. There’s always the possibility that more could come so we’ll just have to wait and see. A very good three book series by one of my favorite authors.