This book was kind of short. I think that was due to it being focused on one single thing, the capture of the Space Guard starship *Icarus*! And yes, that means the *Resolute* now commanded by Captain Owen Shaw has to do the capturing since he let this starship get away. As you read in the previous book, Own Shaw just took command of the *Resolute* after a very difficult battle with a mysterious battleship thought to be from the Pendragon Empire, but actually operated by a bunch of pirates.
Owen Shaw has been in this position before, he previously had to take command away from his commanding officer in order to prevent that Captain from firing on a large group of civilians. Of course his actions resulted in a courts-martial, of which he was found not guilty. Still, this did tarnish his reputation and he was assigned to a backwater location, the Obsidian Sector, where nothing ever happened and assigned to the *Resolute* as the XO (Executive Officer).
He found this ship in terrible condition. The Captain was basically retired on duty and didn’t much care for the spit and polish that the military usually demanded. She had a very overly friendly attitude with her crew and they in turn didn’t take their jobs very seriously. To say the ship wasn’t combat ready would be an obvious statement and no one, including her Captain cared! That didn’t set well with Shaw.
So he did set about changing that attitude, but it wasn’t easy. It seemed that his Captain tried to keep him from doing his job by not supporting his battle drills and acting as if they weren’t even necessary. All of that changed when they were attacked. Numerous crewmen and women were lost including the Captain. That’s when Shaw, once again, took over and assumed the Captaincy of the *Resolute*.
Now Captain Shaw was going to gather the rest of the battle group together and see what he had to do the mission that should have done by the former Captain of the *Resolute*. As the *Resolute* was the largest ship in the battle group, the command of that battle group fell to its Captain. Shaw saw no reason to change this since all the three ships were much smaller and less capable and he figured that the Captains of those ships were here for less than stellar reasons.
But when he called them all together, he found that he had a serious problem with one Captain Grigorev of the *Icarus*. He arrived late to the meeting aboard the *Resolute* and demanded that he be given command of the battle group. He followed up his demand with a weapon drawn and fired at Shaw! He didn’t like Shaw on bit and thought him a traitor who got off lucky with his courts-martial. So, not a good way to start a planning session with his fellow Captains.
Of course Shaw had his own security teams react, but here’s where Captain Shaw made his first stupid mistake! He let Grigorev get back to his ship. Then Shaw did something else that was extremely stupid. He sent an away time lead by his Tactical Officer, Lt. Comdr. Petrea, to the *Icarus* without realizing how dangerous Captain Grigorev had become. Its is unfortunate that these mistakes by Captain Shaw resulted in the death of numerous member of his new crew!
And Captain Shaw was going to make more mistakes. The *Icarus* managed to leave the Obsidian Sector and Shaw determined to go after that ship and eliminate it except for the fact that he had allowed his Tactical Officer to be captured and then Shaw refused to just destroy the *Icarus* when he had the chance. Shaw is much to by-the-book even when he is cut off from his Command HQ and operating on his own with no prospects of resupply and an enemy he knows little about. Now he has a rogue Space Force starship he has to worry about plus the loss of numerous crew members has seriously affected the moral of his own ship.
I for one don’t think Captain Owen Shaw is much of a starship Captain. While he does get input from his senior officers aboard the *Resolute*, the tactical plans don’t seem to put together always lack something that they should have thought about. Captain Shaw fights like he doesn’t want to hurt anyone, yet he’s in a war with pirates that are as cut-throat as they come. If Shaw doesn’t wake up and start fighting like he should, he’s soon going to run out of crew men and women.
I hope in the next book, “Operation Aegis”, Owen Shaw shows a little more backbone or these books will get shorter and shorter. Book 3 is now available on Amazon. I’m not in a rush to read it.
==[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. ]==