It seems like the humans from Earth aren’t ever going to have a peaceful existence. They defeated Commander Seraphis and his AI allies only to find that his second in command, Commander Zhaora is even more maniacal than he is! She’s got some supped chemicals that change the Akakies into gross, over powerful monstrosities, more so than they normally would be. Now she’s done something very, very dangerous and the entire galaxy will pay the price. She has opened a portal to the future and allowed a dangerous crystalline entities to flow into the present although they definitely don’t belong here. They plan on helping Zhaora conquer the galaxy. She doesn’t realize that they would do so with her also among the conquered, but her blind vengeance for the Xortaag has driven her almost insane.
Meanwhile, General Maada has been gathering his forces to stop the Akakies once again and this time to end Commander Zhaora. He’s got Xornaa with him as well as Ethan Irons and Jarred former Earth Marines. As good as the troops General Maada has around him and as battle tested as they have been, the General and everyone else knows they are way over matched. The Prismals flooding through time portal number in the hundreds of thousands and they don’t appear to even need ships. These entities fly through space emitting energy strikes agains their targets with devastating effects.
So, how do they win this battle and possibly end the Akakie threat forever? Well, they can’t do it without help themselves. That’s when Time Marshal Benedita shows up on General Maada’s ship very suddenly. Even with all the security around his command ship, she still manages to shimmer in directly to the bridge. But once there and they give her time to talk, she explains why she has to be there. The time portal that has been opened by Zhaora has to be closed in ninety minutes or the entire know universe will cease to exist! Commander Zhaora doesn’t actually know this although she’s been told that what she has done is very dangerous.
So, they have to come up with a plan to shutdown this portal. That can be done if they can turn off the machine that Commander Zhaora activated aboard her ship. They believe she has it close to her so they need some way to get aboard her ship *Freedom* and shutdown that machine. But the *Freedom* is in the middle of a Prismals fleet of crystal Monoliths, huge dreadnoughts on their own. No way was the *Titan* going to just run up and drop troops on it for a hostile boarding. That’s where Time Marshall Benedita comes in. She has a plan, but it could be a suicide run for a very brave band of volunteers.
Jarred and Xornaa have been standing around just watching the action so they are the first to volunteer. Soon all the Marines, Emily and Miguel volunteer and then two of the Xortaag Marines on the *Titan* are added to the group. So, with about six total, they’re going to board a hostile ship with an estimated 5,000 enemy troops. No problem for this bunch, right?
Unfortunately, there will be problems. No one on the good-guys side has any fancy futuristic weapons, well, Time Marshall Benedita has one, but it’s of limited use. So how is this going to end without all of them and everything else in the universe just blinking out of existence? Remember, they have only ninety minutes to close this time portal and all the while they are making plans and fighting off the enemy, time is moving on. Lots of shipboard combat coming up and even some ship to ship stuff that not everyone is going to survive. While Ethan isn’t boarding any capital ship, he’s also facing about fifty to one odds against the remaining Akakies and the Prismals. He’s almost positive this will be it for him.
But, as this story is about to end, we get to find out something about the next book, Book 6, “Wrath of Gods”. That’s a title worth worrying about without even knowing anything about the story. Still, it’s available on Amazon right now.
==[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.]==