This story is moving right along, but the number of characters seems to be growing way too long! Not only are we trying to figure out the players working with Edgar Bryce, but now we’re engaged with some of his opponents. Those are the Federation military that is siding with Admiral Keenan. The Admiral has some great plan to take down the current Federation government but so far, I’m at a loss as to way. I think he’s tired of war with the Xinthal. That’s understandable, but the Xinthal and the Federation having been at war for a while and were trying to work out some details of a peace accord.
Edgar Bryce, a former military subordinate to Admiral Keenan, informed the Admiral that the Xinthal still had about 200 human prisoners on one of their mining planets. Instead of putting together a rescue attempt, the Admiral passed the issue to the Diplomatic Corps suggesting they may want to bring this up during the current peace talks. The Diplomats didn’t want to do that because they thought they might lose other concessions by the Xinthal. So, the prisoner issue was turned over to a junior Diplomat who was told the issue should quietly go away.
Of course Paul Keller did no such thing. He made contact with a Janson Navarre, a former intelligence agent, now retired and in seclusion in Alaska. He asked Janson to help him contact Bryce and then arranged for a Federation support ship (medical and cargo) to meet with Bryce and his crew just as they crossed by into Federation territory with their rescued Federation prisoners. That ship was the *Swan’s Light* captained by Captain Amelia White. So now we’re introduced to more characters.
The ship and Captain Bryce’s ship meet and the freed prisoners are transferred to the *Swan’s Light* and given medical treatment. We’ve already met some of the prisoner leaders so there’s some additional characters. On top of this, Admiral Bryce has his minions going after Jason Navarre since he helped with arranging the support ship. They want to interrogate him to find out if he knows Bryce’s plans. Meanwhile, The *Alexandria* has gone to the planet Charity which he finds out is in a turmoil of its own (book 2), more characters to read about.
The ship that Admiral Keenan sent after Jason was the *Alexandria* was Captained by Captain Lorne Singer. He wasn’t all that convinced that Admiral Kennan was doing the right thing, but he had his orders and was going to carry them out. As aboard the *Alexandria* was Commander Melina Henderson. She is a deranged psychopath! She has no compunctions about killing anyone in her way. Now the book says she’s Captain Singer’s immediate superior although that’s wrong if Captain Singer is a Captain in the Federation Navy. Still, Commander Henderson doesn’t like the way Captain Singer does things and it could be a fatal dislike.
So, while these two ships chase after each other, Bryce and a few of his crew go to a mining planet ran by the Devar Corporation. This Corporation was a vile as it could be using humans for mining purposes and treating them like slaves. Bryce and his group wanted to gather some very damaging evidence of their criminal activities and the best way to do that was to go to one of their mining operations. Of course they couldn’t be caught because it seemed the Devar Corporation was in league with Admiral Kennan in some way. They wanted to get some intel on that relationship also.
A lot of things going on in this book. Some of it makes sense, but I found it hard to keep up with all the characters and what each one was supposed to be doing. The book does jump around from one scene to another so it’s even more complicated when they do that. I also lost interest when at the very last of the book, Edgar Bryce does something absolutely stupid! I’m not sure I’ll continue with this series.