We are back with the exploits of Lieutenant Solomon Cready and now Second Lieutenant Jezebel Wren, or Jezzy for short, both of the Outcast Marines. While Lieutenant Cready is the squad commander, he’s been separated from his squad for quite some time. His mission was to escort to VIPs to Earth so they could appear before the Grand Council. That didn’t happen.
General Hausman was supposed to be in command of all Earth forces while Brigadier General Asquew was in charge of the Rapid Reaction Force and all forces out side of the Earth – Moon orbit. Only General Hausman has come under the influence of the Ru’at, an alien enemy bent on capturing and converting humans to be their slaves while terraforming Mars and the Earth for their civilization.
Right now the battle for Mars isn’t going very well. Most of Genreal Asquew’s troops have been killed with a lot of junk floating around Mars. While Solomon Cready wasn’t involved in this action, he manage to get himself and his VIPs captured by a clone CEO working for the Ru’at. They have a secret base on the far side of Mars and are slowing building up their forces to further attack Mars and Earth. The Ru’ats have some kind of mind control thing going on and have captured and converted a number of Martians (Earth humans) who are going about the secret base in total bliss. Solomon was subject to this mind control indoctrination, but for some reason, it didn’t take with him. Additionally, former Outcast Marine, Kol, came to his senses and started helping Solomon and his VIPs to escape the Ru’at. Their escape didn’t work so well.
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Wren and what’s left of the original Gold Squad, was sent on a mission back to Mars to make contact with any remaining Rapid Reaction Force troops and to find Lieutenant Cready. Except, during their hyperdrive travel to Mars, the Ru’at attacked knocking them out of hyperdrive and almost killing everyone on board. They are close to Mars so distance isn’t a problem, but they lost most of their oxygen and need to re-supply before they all die. The only place to find more oxygen would be on one of the direlect and destroyed spaceships floating around Mars. They make an attempt to reach one of the larger pieces only to find Ru’at cyborgs aboard ready to fight.
In summary, nothing much really happens in this book. Jezzy and her small squad are no more closer to meeting up with Solomon than they were at the start of the book, and Solomon and his VIPs ran around the underground of the Ru’at base only have to surface again and be captured, again! Still, there is something the Ru’at want from Solomon Cready or they would have killed him already. Wonder what it might be?
The next book should move the story along a little better, I hope. This one was good, but not very exciting; seems like everyone was just stuck where they were and not much was accomplished. I hope you like the book a little better than I did. Oh, and I still think the book cover art work is terrible. Solomon Cready looks like an idiot and not some fearless leader. It looks like his head was just stuck on a body! Of course that’s just my opinion. Nothing to be done about it since all these books are already in print.