This series has gotten better with each book. No longer are we assuming that one single starship can protect the entire Solar System. Still, the Behemoth seems to be about the only starship Earth has, although I know they were supposed to build more. The Behemoth has just arrived back from their side-trip where they discovered another two civilizations locked in deadly combat. Fortunately, one of the sides decided that it would be best not to make the humans angry and eventually cooperated in defeating a much deadlier enemy. Now having arrived at Earth, the crew is in for some R&R before being sent out again.
That R&R turns out to be shorter than expected although the crew did get some rest and the ship did get some much needed repairs and upgrades. Their next mission should be much, much easier and shouldn’t involve any combat! Right! So, they are setting off for the Kielean’s homeworld, Alantha. Clea An’Tufal was a native Kielan who was serviing aboard the Behemoth as an advisor. She was very good at her job and had a lot of experience behind her. While the humans had just started fighting their common enemy, Clea and the Kielan’s had been gaining combat experience for quite some time.
Just before the Behemoth’s departure from Earth, Clea has a very, very vivid dream. She was back on her first starship engaged in a fierce battle with four of the enemy ships. For some reason, their enemy thought nothing of taking on the Kielans even when they were out numbered two to one as was the case in this battle. It was eight Kielan starships against the enemy’s four and they were losing ships fairly quickly. As a junior officer at this time, Clea was in a lab frantically studying the signals emanating from the enemy ship. She suddenly saw something that know on had discovered before and it was something that could end this war in a very short time. Then her lab exploded. Her ship had taken a massive shot and was coming apart. She started to leave her station to get to a lifeboat when everything went black. Later after being in a hospital for quite sometime, she realized that her memory of that attack were gone. Along with it was the discovery she had made. But now her dream was bringing back those memories as the psychologist had expected. She felt she must tell Captain Atwell, Commanding the Behemoth, and convince him that they needed to go back to the site of the battle as soon as possible.
Captain Gray Atwell didn’t have a problem making a side trip on their return from Alantha, but he wanted the Kielan’s to provide some support since it was one of their destroyed ships they were trying to find. He also found out that the location of the ship was in a “Bermuda Triangle” of space. Ships when there, but seldom came back. Their enemy was know to have fought several other battles in that area and now pirates shifted through the wreckage for anything valuable. Still, they needed to make an effort if the information Clea wanted so badly could possibly end the war.
The action in this book is pretty good. We don’t actually get into a lot of fighting until more than half way through the book, but we eventually do find the Behemoth in the thick of it again. Yet this time, they are the better ship because they are better trained and have a strong military discipline. I liked the way the book was written and it stayed on topic the whole time. There wasn’t a lot of side trips talking about characters that had nothing to do with the story and we get to see more about the Kielans. We also notice that Captain Gray Atwell and Clea An’Tufal seem to be getting closer and closer although their relationship stays strictly professional. I wonder if that will change anytime soon.
The next book, “Artifact: Rise of Mankind Book 6” is already out and of course I have this one already.