Another pretty short, but straight-forward book in this lengthening series. The USS Morrigan is making repairs and trying to figure out where to go next. They have a few leads, but nothing solid. Meanwhile, Rita Peck and Erris, the MerCon executive are still on their mission to find information about who and why the Confederation abandoned the Frontier and if it was because of the Ervas. The Ervas is the enemy the Confed and the Gold Empire are or should be fighting together.
And, then there’s the situation with Captain Oliver Peck, Rita’s brother who was left on an unnamed planet over which the USS Morrigan, the Gold Empire and the ervas fought a significant battle. He was thought to have died when ejected from a downed pirate vessel, but obvious not. He was also with a VIP of the Gold Empire, a Doctor Meredith Lyson who had been captured by the pirates. Both were now just trying to survive. They though the planet was totally uninhabited, but were to find out later, that wasn’t the case. Unfortunately, the other people on this planet weren’t friendly survivors!
So, while the USS Morrigan was figuring out where to go next, a flotilla of Gold Empire ships jumped into their vicinity. Instead of just firing immediately, the asked for Captain Merkel. Surprisingly, they wanted to team up and together attack a secret lab that contained a lot of information about the ervas. Captain Merkel has no reason to trust these Gold Empire Captains, but they told a convincing story and led him to believe that two of their ships would accompany the Morrigan in the attack on the lab. It was thought that the lab was unarmed, so there shouldn’t even be any fighting. Of course, that was totally wrong!
Again, another good book in a very good series. Things kind of start to straighten out towards the end of the book, but then things go sour real quickly and we’re left with a good “cliff-hanger” for an ending. I’ll be reading the next book real soon!