Well I thought this was the end for both of our main characters. Aldo Cassidy has been found out, that is he admitted that he changed identities with some guy named Aldo Cassidy. He really was Sam Levine, a small time criminal back on Mars. This came to light when a Lieuteant recognized him from a job he had done on Mars. Captain Risler, Commander of the *Arden* was dismayed at this revelation, but she considered this Cassidy to have been a top-notch soldier under her command. She was more than willing to overlook his past, but what he did was a criminal act so he was going to have to go back to Mars supposedly to stand trial. Oh, and his crime was an executable offense!
Meanwhile, Sam Levine, Shep, Mel and Elora were on Mars of all places looking for Knowles, the guy who did the original identity swap. What they were going to do with him after they found him is a mystery to me. That’s certainly not stated in the book. But, while they did find Knowles, he was clearly more than they bargained for. Knowles works for Artel. Artel is the guy that’s supposedly working for the Chairman, following his orders to ensure the human empire doesn’t get destroyed by the Gorlands. Artel is a cold-blooded manipulator who does what he wants to achieve his goals. Knowles was just “experimenting” on Cassidy and Levine and that experiment seemed to have worked very well. It also meant that Artel had the means to now control anybody through the manipulations of their identity engrams. Unfortunately, Sam, Shep, Mel and Elora were taken to a special black-ops prison where Artel would thoroughly interrogate them.
This prison also happens to be the same place that Aldo was going to be taken to. Captain Risler managed to arrange for Cully and Ellie, his Sergeant and Corporal to escort him to the prison. They nor Captain Risler knew that it wasn’t actually a Security Corps prison, but a special place that Artel had setup for his own us.
Now, back to Justicar Rains, Sarina and Jenna were after Helmut Nassir, the Justicar on Borealis Station who had gone in with the criminals of Constance. Nassir had fled to a remote planet and had set himself up in a nice hideaway, but not good enough for Rains. They were now after him and knew that getting inside the place was going to be very difficult. Their job was suddenly hampered by the appearance of a Constance hit team that also seemed to want Nassir, only they probably wanted him dead.
So, after this attempt to secure Nassir, Rains and company were finally heading back to Mars to deliver Jeanna to her father, Trenton Oslow. He had been waiting for their reunion for a long while, but was just glad that she was safe. Mr. Oslow had recently been appointed as one of the Three. They were supposed to be working for the Chairman, but one of the other Three found out that there was no Chairman and hadn’t been for quite some time. He believed the third part to their trio was doing things he wanted done using the Chairman’s name as his authority. One of the “tools” he was using was Artel. Oslow knew of Artel since his go-between, Miller had spoken of him. The Three that had contacted Oslow said that Artel had to be eliminated before he destroyed Mars and Earth. So, Miller was tasked with getting that done and he was going to use Justicar Raines and Sarina to do the job.
Justicar Rains and his partner, Sarina, were told that the colony known as Constance, home of the criminal family by the same name had been totally destroyed by the Gorlands. They believed that Artel had established some kind of calling beacon on that colony planet that drew the Gorlands. Of course the colony planet had no means of figthing the Gorlands so it was pretty much a slaughter. Now the Oslow and Miller were afraid that Artel was going to do the same on Mars, set off beacons to attact the Gorlands. Artel was trying to make humanity understand that it was in no shape to defend itself and had to commit vast resources to beef up their defenses. Only they hadn’t done anything fast enough to his way of thinking so they were going to pay for it. He figured there weren’t that many Gorlands out there so a small attack might be thwarted by the existing Mars fleet. He could be dead wrong.
So the Gorlands are going to attack Mars and then probably Earth. They really don’t have the defenses to stop such an attack. It could very well be the end of human civilization if the Gorlands are successful. Will a treaty with the Talmar help anyone or is it too late?
This seems to be the end of this series. While it started out kind of confusing, it cleared up somewhat with each book. The ending is pretty straightforward and sounded good. I enjoy reading these books even though there were a lot of characters to keep straight. I’m looking forward to other books by John Walker!