Solomon Cready is back on Ganymede at the Outcast Marines training base and seems to have mostly recovered from his recent gunshot wound suffered on Titan. And that’s a good thing since Warden Coates doesn’t tolerate slackers even if they had been shot.
He’s kind of rudely awoken by Malady in the early morning, not to do some more training, but to listen to the latest news headlines concerning Mars and the Confederation. Since the Confederation has held the Imprimatur of Mars, Dr. Valance and the spokeperson for the First Martians/Chosen of Mars, Father Ultor, Martian colonist are in an uproar. They have taken over and destroyed several Confederation corporate assets and now the Confederation has to respond.
That response is going to come via the Confederation Marines including the Outcast Marines. So, once again into the breach goes Gold Squad led by Specialist Commander Solomon Cready. All is not well with the squad right now. Combat Specialist Jezzie Wen is in a deep depression due to the recent run in with a Yakuza operative. He had told Wen that she still have a job to do for Boss Mihashi when she had thought she was done with all that. Wen decided that she couldn’t kill Solomon Cready and that put her father in jeopardy. Since she had killed the operation at the end of their last mission, she was expecting to hear word that her father had been killed by the Yakuza in retaliation for her not doing the job assigned. Solomon finds her ready to commit suicide and talks her out of that for a while anyway.
The mission call has came out so the Marines are all loaded up and heading towards Mars. Gold Squad has been given a slightly different mission, one that could easily get them killed. They are going to have to infiltrate the Martian capital and try to steal the war plans of the rebellious First Martians. Instead of going in fully combat loaded, they will wear civilian clothes and very little in the way of weapons. Solomon isn’t so sure about this mission. With Mars set for a war with the Confederation, he and his squad will be surrounded by potential enemies. Additionally, his main weapon, Malady won’t be with them all the way since he’d stand out way, way too much. So, it’s just Solomon, Wen, Karamov, and Kol, all non-Martians on the inside of the Martian dome with Malady waiting outside with a potential pick/rescue mission.
While it seems everything has been planned out pretty much in advanced for Gold Squad, no one expected what actually happened. One member of Gold Squad isn’t who she/he appears to be and almost causes the death of one other member. Oh, and another member of Gold Squad gets shot!
Book 5 is out for Pre-order, but I don’t know when it will actually drop.