This book is, well, short! I think it took me about sever hours to read. It’s also a little confusing mostly because I’m an American and the soldiers doing the fighting are Scots and Brits. Their organizational structure is unfamiliar so it was kind of hard to determine who was in charge and who should be directing the fighting. To make matters worse, this group of soldiers were a mix of veterans and trainees. They were going through some called “Phase Two of Reserve Training”. While they were trying to be stealthy, one of the trainees failed spectacularly by stumbling and then firing off a round (blank) accidentally. It was a negligent discharge which is something that should never, ever happen.
Anyway, Corporal Smith (no first name) seems to be in-charge of this squad composed of two Lance Corporals Finn and Zuberi (Zuri). They also have the trainees with them as Privates Noah, Kapoor and I think one other, but I can’t find the name. Anyway, Lance Corporal Finn gets blamed for the negligent discharge since it was one of his squad that committed the offense. Nothing really comes of it except he’s been embarrassed by his Lieutenant for his supposed lack of training of Private Noah. This is all normal stuff that happens during training. It should be noted that all their weapons had blank adapters secured so no live rounds were being fired. What live ammo there was, was back a the HQ with the Lieutenant.
Meanwhile we get small chapters about a ship that has entered the Solar System heading for Earth. Of course this information gets passed around the various scientific communities until it’s agreed that the President needs to be made aware of a large alien object approaching Earth. It is doing a good job of cloaking its exact appearance since the scientific community only think it a spaceship. As it gets closer to Earth, they can better confirm that it is indeed a spaceship which goes into orbit around Earth.
Now, I can’t write much more about this book because I would almost be re-writing the whole story. Suffice it to say, the alien ship launches three pods towards Earth that do contain three alien soldiers. They just happen to land in the vicinity of the training exercise in Scotland. What happens next involves Corporal Smith’s squad in a big way. It also obviously draws the attention of every nation on Earth, but we only hear what the President/Vice President and the Joint Chief’s of Staff are thinking about the situation. They and ever country that saw the spaceship know that it contains advanced technology that must be secured if these aliens do not turn out to be friendly. They are definitely unfriendly!
Ok, as I said, this is a short book. It will take some twist and turns that are unexpected and should have come to a simple ending, but nothing is simple with science fiction writers. Our three soldiers, Finn, Zuri, Noah, and Smith are going on an unintended adventure the likes of which will continue in book 2, “[Return Protocol](https://amzn.to/3qEB2wy)”, now available on Amazon. I’m adding it to my reading list now.