As you’ll recall, Brent Parthet was one beefed up fighting machine. He had been part of the Archangels, as super secret, tough as nails, combat asset operated by Colonel Janus. The Archangels weren’t normal humans. They had gone through an extensive medical process which enhances every bit of their body to the extent that some didn’t even make it through the process. Those that did were lethal weapons for the Consortium in the war against the Southwind. The Southwind were genetically created humanoids initially made to alleviate normal humans from having to work in less than desirable conditions. The Southwind could live and breathe on planets that were uninhabitable by normal humans.
They did their jobs as they were supposed to until some decided that it was time to stop being slaves to the Consortium. Well, that was what the public thought. Come to find out, the Consortium and the wealthy citizens got richer when a war was going on. So, a few upper echelon big-wigs decided to stage what appeared to be revolt among the Southwind. This then lead to a war that they wanted in the first place. The Archangels were created to fight that war and they had done very well. But, eventually the Southwind had to stop fighting and agree to be resettled on planets that humanity did not want. Now a period of peace has settled on the Consortium, and the war profits have stopped.
So, it appears that those same individuals that actually started the last war, were going to do it again. They had come up with some kind of plot to create a huge incident and blame it on the Southwind. Only this time, Brent Parthet knew a lot more about what had caused the previous war and he was no longer part of the Archangels, or at least not a part of that group that fought the last war. He now was determined to not let another war get started and he believed he had a person by the name of Jaime Carnahan who could tell him a lot about the up coming plot to start that new war.
All Parthet has to do is keep Carnahan alive until he can thoroughly interrogate him. Fortunately, he’s joined with some of his former Archangels, namely Castiel, a.k.a. “Cas” (Gino Olin) and Raphael (Kamran Ali). Parthet was himself known as Michael when he was with the Archangels. They knew who from the Consortium had been involved in starting the last war and they figured they were now involved in trying to kick off this next war. This plot went to the top with the Director of the Security and Intelligence (SID) Phil Montanelli and the CEO of the Consortium, Vincent Duret, heavily implicated.
Their interrogation of Carnahan directs them to Orbital One. This is a huge orbiting space station above Halcyon, the third planet in the Alpha Centauri System. At any one time, Orbital One housed some two billion inhabitants all waiting for a chance to have an audience with their Parliamentarian or even get into the Prime Minister’s Palace. The Consortium Headquarters had moved a long time ago down to the planet Halcyon. If the new plan to start a war involved either of these locations, a Brent Parthet was going to have a very tough time preventing it. He was after all now considered a traitor to the Consortium and couldn’t just go walking around without some kind of disguise.
So Brent does managed to get to Orbital One and begins trying to unravel a plot that could start a new war. He believes both Montanelli and Duret are involved in the plot but he also figures that they are going to be doing the deed if it does in fact result in the destruction of Orbital One or even the destruction of Consortium HQ on the planet below. He also doesn’t know when their attack will take place, but he figures he hasn’t got a lot of time left.
Eventually, Brent Parthet and his followers go to the very depths of the orbital station where they believe some kind of bomb will be planted if it hasn’t already. While down there, the run into someone that thought was very dead, Colonel Conrad Janus, the same Colonel that had started the Archangel project way back before the first war. Brent thought, no knew he was dead because he had killed him! So how is he very much alive and deeply involved in what could be the end of humanity?
This book is interesting and it flows very well. There is some confusion about what has happened to this point so it might be good to re-read my review of book 2, “Avenging”, before getting into this one. And as things kind of go, this isn’t the end of the series. No, book 4, “Reckoning”, is now available on Amazon.
**[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. ]**