There’s something off about this series. I think it’s the fact that I can’t tell who is supposed to be the the real main character. We’ve got a number of story lines running around with each character getting a lot of scenes and story time, yet none see to stand out as the person we’re following all the way through the book.
At first I though it was Captain David Warwick who was instrumental in getting the surviving humans through the “Passage” and headed towards some far distant planet. He commands the Daedalus which is on of the more powerful ships in the small human fleet. Yet, he’s been relegated to taking on diplomatic missions with no real diplomats. He does get himself and his ship in trouble when he diverts from his original mission to assist what could be new allies. Still, he’s only a small part of this story.
Then there’s Major Beth Warwick. She’s the ground force commander and in charge of clearing out the “Cavers” from the planet. Strangely, no one ever says the name of this planet. Anyway, it’s inhabited by some strange creatures seemly devoid of intelligence, they are humanoid, but the also have deadly claws and have no problem eating humans! They live under ground, but also in the vast under ground city that was recently found. So, Beth’s forces are charged with getting rid of them and it’s a big problem. She has to setup several rescue efforts when people get trapped beneath the rubble of the ancient city. It’s either be rescued or eaten by the “Cavers” or something else down there might also eat humans.
Then there’s the story of Captain Quinn and Lieutenant Kendra Basher. I’m not actually sure what they are up to. Captain Quinn, who is actually a fake and a criminal, has some how gotten himself set up as some kind of efficient expert working for some Captain. He’s drag Lt. Basher into his game with him, but she’s more than he knows and she’s becoming very deadly on her own. Not sure where this part of the story is supposed to go.
So, there are a lot of pieces to this book, and not all of them seem to fit together very well. While this is a new and scarcely explored planet, the majority of the civilian population on the starships that made it through the “Passage” have been down to the surface. That can’t happen for very long. Still, they are finding what they thought to be a very peaceful part of the galaxy, is now turning very dangerous. Not as bad as what was happening in the Solar System, but they now have very limited assets to fight whatever is coming up.
I’ve got the next book, “Divided”, but I have no idea what it’s going to be about.