The battle over Alfheim did not go well for the Republic. In fact, it went terribly bad for the Republic Army. Some two-hundred thousands soldiers, contractors and civilians had been left on the planet when the fleet had to do a hasty retreat. Those soldiers were slowly dying while hiding in caves and any place else they could find. The Orbots and the Zodarks are relentless pursuing any stray units and viciously eliminating them when found. The Republic soldiers are running out of food and ammo as well as anything else that might make their lives even a little better. Relief was coming, but whether it was coming soon enough was a big question.
The Primords had also left a considerable force on planet Alfheim although they seemed to be better stocked for supplies and had a very effective intelligence network working on the planet. Still, they needed the support of the Republic Army soldiers to actually get anything done. They now had intel about a space elevator being constructed at a particular location. That elevator was going to be supporting a massive orbital defense platform if and when it got built. The Primord Commander wanted the Republic Army to assist in destroying the ground base for the elevator. It didn’t take any hard figuring to know that the Zodarks would be heavily defending this critical base. 1st Lt Henry Magnussen, now commander of what remained of Alpha Company, 312th Battalion, was responsible for the sector where the space elevator was located so it was up to him to gather his troops and get this base destroyed. He knew that doing so would also probably wipe out the rest of his company, but they were probably going to be wiped out sometime soon anyway so he figured they might just do some harm while they could.
You’ll read about a lot of the ground action on Alfheim in this book. It gets pretty intense at times and it’s great to read about some of the actions of individual soldiers who are doing their jobs on a cold, frozen planet with very little in the way of support. Meanwhile, Viceroy Hunt is attempting to put together a massive fleet to come back to Aflheim and retake the planet and save what is left of the two-hundred thousand he left behind. Earth has been producing a massive amount of ships with the help of some of the Alliance aliens. Hunt believes he has what he needs to get back to Aflheim and even possibly end this entire war.
So, we do get to read about a major space battle towards the middle of the book. It is huge and lots of starships are being destroyed. On the off chance that the Orbots have had enough fighting, he contacts their Admiral in charge of their side of the battle. The Orbots have never previously engaged any of the Alliance military during a battle for any reason, yet, this time they do!
What comes of this contact will probably surprise you, but it will not be the end of the story. There’s still a lot going on that needs to be handled or the fighting will be started up again and it’s going to be a lot worse. I enjoy reading these books due to the details the writer takes in telling the story. I’ll continue reading and will look forward to book 6, “Into the Calm”, when it becomes available on/about 21 June 2022.