We’re back with the Behemoth, Earth’s only starship that just completed a mission eradicating a bunch of terrorist that took over a vital orbital mine. The ship and crew are on their way back to Earth traveling through jump-space at many times the speed of light. Then something happened and their unceremoniously dump back into real space, not something that is supposed to happen on it’s own.
Captain Gray Atwell (who names their kid “Gray”?) commands the Behemoth and he’s feeling the effects of the sudden drop just as much as the rest of the crew. It’s not a pleasant feeling and a number of recovering crew members are staggering to sick bay. The Captain and senior bridge staff don’t have time for sick bay, they need to get their ship powered up again and find out what happened, why, how much damage did they sustain, and most importantly, where are they? It would have been most fortunate if this “event” had dropped them back in the Solar System, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. It seems that every major ship system is down and at first it wasn’t possible to even contact Engineering to see what they were doing to restore power. So, the Captain is staggering towards Engineering to get them moving.
Since the Behemoth is so dependent on technology and power to run it, they are basically drifting in space in a giant tube with no way to see out or even hear what’s going on around them. Little do they know that they have dropped into the middle of a system-wide war and into a current hotly contested battle. Both of these “alien” antagonist are temporarily blinded by the abrupt appearance of the Behemoth. They have no idea what it is or where it came from, but they automatically stop fighting each other and begin to assess this new “threat”.
So, now it’s up to the crew of the Behemoth to get their ship back to normal function. They need to find out what awaits them on the outside and figure out how to deal with it. Will these new “aliens” be friend or foe, and if foe, how badly can they affect the Behemoth? Can they repair the damage sustained their jump drive enough to get back home? That’s the big question. And a second question that doesn’t want to be asked, is “How did the damage happen? or “Who did it?”. That second part would indicate that they have a saboteur on-board among the crew. Not a pleasant thing to think about your fellow crew mates.
Once again the writing is great. The story moves along quite well. We get to meet and know another set of not really aliens, but human-type people that have been at war with each other for a long time. Two habitable planets in the same system that seem to have nothing better to do than try and destroy one another. Maybe they will find a common ground to join together now that they know they are not alone in the universe. One can only hope.
This series does continue with the next book, “Pursuit” which I’m eagerly looking forward to reading.