I’m not sure how the title of this book fits the story. There doesn’t appear to be any “rebel” worlds, well except for Aethos, maybe. That’s where Evan and Anya aboard Sam, the alien starship, have returned. Neither Evan nor Anya have fully bought into what Conroy has been telling them, but they do know that the current Chancellor Victor Rostov isn’t the side to be on.
They have captured Roman Santano, brother to Marcus Santano and head of the Noche Syndicate, but they don’t know exactly what to do with him. Evan seems to think he might give Roman a second chance if the guy would agree to help them fight back against Rostov and the Syndicate. Roman has no intention of doing that at first. Then he admits that he needs additional dosages of the alien serum that the Syndicate gave to all their leaders. Evan had taken what little Roman had when they fought. Evan had the serum primer and a lot more since they had visited the “Temple” planet and found the bracelets that allowed Evan to better control the alien nanites.
Roman eventually tells Evan where he can find a laboratory and a warehouse of the serum. It’s in a fortified orbiting bunker just beneath the clouds of a gas planet. Evan goes on a recon mission to determine if they can gain access to this warehouse. It’s going to be a very dangerous job, but he gets Zaris Alva, Captain of the Invictus, and her band of pirates to assist. Evan doesn’t know if he can keep his promise to give Roman a dosage of the serum if they can get any nor does he want to give Zaris a vial of the stuff as payment for her help. But he knows he and Anya by themselves can’t possibly crack this fortress. It’s also the only source of the alien serum for the Syndicate so capturing it would be a major problem for the Syndicate leadership.
Meanwhile, deposed Chancellor Conroy has to decide when he’s going public with his attempt to take back his Chancellorship that was stolen from him. He has a lot of followers still on Terrax, the capital city, who would support him in an uprising if he called for it. But, Chancellor Rostov is very aware that Conroy is alive and on Aethos. He just doesn’t have anyway to get to him without having to go through a number of “gates” that current starship are restricted to.
Conroy eventually decides to announce his presence to the entire galaxy using Sam’s abilities and does so with great success. It is a complete shock to Rostov and the Noche Syndicate so they have to devise a plan to discredit Conroy’s announcement and evidence he presented of Rostov’s tie-in with the Syndicated and some of his illegal dealings. Marcus Santano contacts his sister, Marta, and directs her to attack a major trading center but do so disguised as Conroy and his people. She does this by creating an AI image of Conroy and demanding the trading center pledge allegiance to Conroy or be destroyed. Of course she doesn’t give the trading center time to formulate a response before she sends missiles down to the moon it’s located on and destroys the entire facility, killing hundreds of people and wounding thousands.
Once Evan and Conroy find out about this, they have to do something to make the people believe it was a setup by the Syndicate to discredit Conroy. So Conroy decides to go to the site of the destruction and let the people see him in person and listen to him telling his side of the story. Evan meanwhile is planning on trying to restore the devastation by using his alien powers. This works to some extent, until Marta again shows up and attacks Sam. Marta has some how developed a rudimentary jump drive using stolen pieces of the jump drive. Her plan to kill Conroy while he stands on the moon is thwarted by Evan, again using his alien powers. When Marta flees after failing to kill Conroy or capturing Sam, Sam follows her to the Syndicate HQ planet asking for help.
Evan has re-boarded Sam and he uses his powers to find where Marta is located and takes action to stop her. How he does this is pretty strange and he doesn’t seem to have any qualms about his actions.
So now Conroy must actively start campaigning for his return to the Chancellorship. This could mean a war between the Syndicate and the Common Wealth UPDF (United Planetary Defense Force) unless he can convince the latter to come over to his side.
Just at the end, Anya receives some information from a few drones she has planted around suspected Korani planets that had been destroyed by someone or something. She finds they are sending out a very peculiar signal. That same signal is also being sent out by Terrax, but it certainly hasn’t been destroyed!
More to come in book 4, “Last Stand”, not available on Amazon.
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[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. ]