We start off with our fearless heroes attacking a shipping warehouse for Twain, the evil AI that is trying to star a war with humanity. He’s building his army by capturing humans and modifying them into cyborgs. Hank Spears along with Lara, Imogen, Alek and Clynt are all fighting furiously in the initial chapter and that’s kind of a prelude to what’s going to happen during the rest of the book. But, while they are fighting forces of Twain in this battle, they do get side-tracked once again.
They have gotten the help Councilwoman Alana Torg’an after the death of Zenobia. She is trying to find out what the Trappers are doing without getting the attention of the Trapper Councilperson. She knows they are up to something but she needed more evidence of what. She also needs Lara and Hank to continue their Bounty Hunter jobs. She has information about certain individuals but she can’t release that info unless Lara as Kilara Vex gains in rank. Sounds kind of silly to me but the Conclave is all about rules. In order to gain rank, Councilwoman Torg’an tells the two to go after a notorious criminal pirate Captain Russ Blanchard.
The Councilwoman also mentions something to Lara that gets her attention in spades. She says that with this bounty and a few other things that could soon happen, there could be a vacancy of the Council of Six. She said that someone of Kilara Vex’s character could well fill that role if she continued her bounty hunter duties and definitely if she brought this lates criminal to justice.
So, that set Lara up to go after this guy and the war against Twain just has to wait! This is typical of the stories in this series. They make some headway against Twain but then get side-tracked and go off doing something totally unrelated. This time Lara agrees that Hank needs to come with her while they search for leads to the location of Captain Blanchard. The rest of the crew get a call from Ammo, the Peacers General, and she’s requesting help with some of Twain’s minions. So, the Peacers under Hanks command are freed to go help Ammo and the rest of the Peacer Army.
Lara and Hank do find a lead and once located they threaten him with bodily torture if he doesn’t give them the location of Captain Blanchard. Of course, neither Hank nor Lara wanted to actually hurt the guy, but they had to make it seem as though they would do so if he didn’t talk. Surprisingly, the guy starts talking. He tells them where the Captain is hold up and how to get to him through a secret passage into a warehouse where he’s hiding.
Lara and Hank take off and of course Ned, the AI, is always with them. He provides some running commentary along the way and has information about the planet they are going to. Once they arrive, they find the building with the secret passage way and follow it into the warehouse. This is where they find out that things are not going as smoothly as they would have hoped. And actually things turn into a big disaster. Hank finds himself on his own with Lara definitely in serious trouble.
Hank is going to have to call in his other friends and they are going to war again but against the Trappers of the Conclave! This isn’t something that anyone would have thought they’d have to do and it’s never something done in the history of the Conclave.
Fortunately, they do get back to fighting the war agains Twain, but now he’s had the time to build an army and his forces are attacking several different locations in the galaxy at once. Hank and company pick one critical spot they need to defend and off they go. This is going to be a long war so it’s certainly not ended in this book. The next book, “Gathering Storm”, continues the war which could be long and drawn out but Lara now is in a position to significantly help!
==[Note 1 (12/23/2025): I’m no longer associated with Amazon and will no longer provide any links to books from that website. You can usually find books that you like at your usual source.]==
==[Note 2: As of 12/03/2023, this will not be posted on Amazon since I have been banned from posting reviews for some unknown reason. ]==