Former Scrapper and now Bounty Hunter Hank Spears is finally thinking about going after their real enemy, Twain, Twain is the evil AI that survived the long ago human and AI war. His kind wanted to turn all humans into cyborgs but that idea was finally killed and all the AIs were thought to have died or been taken apart and their coding erased. Yet, we’re now finding there are a lot of AIs still around the galaxy. Even Hank is working with Ned, an AI, he found while scrapping.
That find got him in a lot of trouble with the Inquisition. That organization was supposed to be hunting down any remaining AIs and destroying them. It had become something of a religious or cult organization with their members being fanatics. Once such fanatic was Inquisitor John Gregory. He had relentlessly came after Hank Spears and his friend and companion Lara. Early on Gregory had an Acolyte named Imogen who had been forced into her role. She eventually, with Hank and Lara’s help, freed herself from the Inquisition and Inquisitor Gregory and now was fighting along side Hank and Lara.
Hank knew that Twain was trying to rebuild an army of surgically altered humans. He was doing this evil deed some where on a huge ship called the *H. H. Watson*. Hank and his friends were going to find that ship and destroy it if possible, but they also knew that they couldn’t just destroy a ship full of humans. Some of them hadn’t probably been operated on, just surviving as captives aboard that ship. Hank also knew that he wasn’t going to get this done just with a few people around him he was going to have to call in a lot of friends and how it would be enough!
Hank and Ned had boarded a derelict space station that was being occupied by an AI that had been altered by Twain. While the AI wasn’t doing anything much aboard an empty space station, he had information as to what Twain was up to. So, Hank and Lara, along with Ned, Alex, Imogen and Clynt boarded the space station, fought through a bunch of horrible AI constructed androids and finally found Chaz, an alternated evil AI. Doctor Edwin wanted an altered AI so he could study its programming and now they had one.
Chaz has the information they need to start a trail that will hopefully lead them to *Watson*. In the meantime, Hank and Lara need to check-in with Zenobia, their Conclave handler. But first they made a call to Bounty Hunter Mane Malik to see if he knew what the trappers were up to. It seems that someone had attacked the *Buzzard*, Hank’s ship, when they had left a planet. It was an EMP attack that completely crippled the *Buzzard* and it almost crashed if it hadn’t been for Hanks prior planning due to what Lutch had taught him.
Of course, Malik isn’t much help so that’s why they need to see Zenobia. From here on the book gets very deadly. We’er going to see the death of one of the important characters. It’s going to affect everyone and especially one person, but they still have a mission to complete. They must stop Twain no matter the cost. Hank and Lara don’t know exactly who is trying to kill them but as Bounty Hunters, they have made man, many enemies. They’ll need to get this figure out because they can’t afford the distraction since they’re after something much more important than the Bounty Hunters Guild.
This book doesn’t end the series. Twain is still out there somewhere. They are getting close, but it will take more to actually find the cube that Twain occupies and that finally battle will take all their resources. Book 10, “Hunter Ascended”, is available now on Amazon.
==[Note: As of 12/03/2023, this will not be published on Amazon since I have been banned from posting reviews for some unknown reason. Once the ban is lifted, assuming it does get lifted, I’ll go back and post this to Amazon.]==