Well, I finally got back with Commodore Owen Shaw and his protection of the Obsidian Sector. He’s been cutoff from the Confederation for some time now and has taken on the commanding role of the few remaining Space Guard starships that were left in the Obsidian Sector when the warp gate shut-down. As he was the senior commander of the largest starship in this sector, he was promoted to Commodore so as to provide leadership to all the remaining Space Guard starship Captains.
He most recently found some critical information that will tell him just who is in charge of this band of slave traders called the Phoenix! That person has been identified as Sutton Turner, the same guy who had brought Owen Shaw up on charges after he refused to follow then Captains Turner’s orders to fire on a large civilian population. Shaw was cleared of all wrongdoing in his courts-martial and Sutton was soon honorable discharged from the Space Guard Navy. It seems he fled to the Obsidian Sector and has made a deal with the Pendragon Empire to supply them with slaves if they provide him with ships.
Defeating the Phoenix and his organization has been the focal point of Commodore Owen Shaw since he found himself and others stuck in the Obsidian Sector. He has declared Morrigon Station as his main operating base from which he dispatches various starships of his small fleet to go and check on colonies trying to survive in this sector. Those colonies have been the target of the Phoenix and Shaw wants to stop their operations as permanently as possible and soon.The last ship he sent out was the *Lincoln*. Shaw just recently heard from the Captain of the *Lincoln* but only through a message delivered by a merchant ship that happened to intercept a message from the *Lincoln*.
That message said the *Lincoln* was in desperate need of help. They had encountered a Phoenix starship and while they survived, they were in need of rescue since the *Lincoln* was in bad shape. Now Owen Shaw was smart enough to be very suspicious of this message. The Captain of the *Lincoln* looked in very bad shape and while he was talking, he was constantly looking off screen at someone who did not want to be identified or shown. So Shaw believed that this message was sent to entice him into another trap.
But, as Commodore Shaw has proven in several books now, he’s not much of a tactical or strategic thinker. Even though he knows this might be a trap, he takes the *Resolute*, his ship and only his ship off to conduct the rescue. He leaves three other smaller, but capable ships back to protect Morrigan Station. This was his first mistake among many he’ll make which is his usual method of operating. Shaw only cares about the people whom he commands and doesn’t seem to understand that those same people can and do die when they come in contact with his enemies. Shaw also has an idiotic compassion of his enemy and even when confronted with a point-blank target, he won’t pull the trigger. That reluctances almost cost him his ship.
So, he is falling into a trap and he will soon realize that the Phoenix has developed a new weapon that can and does disable everyone and almost everything on his ship. This weapon is an EMP weapon that has been modified to work on humans and not just electronic devices. Once it hits a ship, everything shuts down including the crew. This is going to happen to the *Resolute* because Commodore Owen Shaw isn’t smart enough to call for additional ships and formulate a plan before going off to rescue the *Lincoln* and it’s crew. By now I’m kind of used to Owen Shaw doing stupid things. He does one or more in every book so far, not the kind of main character I can associate with.
So, by sheer luck, Owen Shaw and his small fleet manage to escape to fight another day. That day will probably come in book 5, “Operation Inferno”, 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. ]