This is a very interesting book. How would you react if your country suddenly lost a war, THE war, and you no longer had a country? That doesn’t happen in the real world or not to my knowledge anyway. Yet, it’s just happened to Captain Miggy Morrison and the crew of the FSS *Cabrillo*. Captain Morrison was not a bad Captain, but he had a former ex-wife who had married up in their society and had some influence with the People’s Democratic Republic of Forillda (PDRF) Navy. So while he had done nothing wrong he and his crew were now exiled, so to speak, in the Pakrewan System. This system was at the tail end of everything. It had absolutely nothing going for it and even the people who lived and worked in the system, mostly miners, didn’t like the place!
Now having read my first paragraph, who in the heck was responsible for the names of characters and places in this book? That person should be stricken from participating in any future books, please. A Navy starship Captain named “Miggy”! His actual name was Michelangelo Morrison, but he had preferred to shorten it to Miggy and as he was the Captain, no one objected, except this reader! Even the name of the ship, “Cabrillo” doesn’t even show up in the dictionary. And there will be more strange names. His country’s enemy is the Free Federation of Kormania (FFK) which again is another name I’ve never read of or seen any where else. I guess you could say the naming conventions used for this book were very unique, but for me, hard to accept.
Anyway, Captain Morrison, his crew and ship were assigned to support the Pakrewan Unified Sysgov in whatever they needed done in space. The Pakrewans were not involve in the war between Forillda and the Federation of Kormania, therefore, neither was the *Cabrillo*. It was acting as a temporary customs inspector for any ships coming into the system. This was a very boring job especially since the Pakrewans were very backward in the way they did things. Custom inspection had to be done in person, and a checklist in writing in triplicate had to be filled out for each inspection. This drove Captain Morrison absolutely crazy or rather to drink heavily! He wasn’t an alcoholic yet, but getting very close. But he did his duty until that fateful day when an important message came into the Pakrewan Sysgov. Miggy forgot to get that message upon his arrival at their dock at Araf Station. He usually headed to his preferred drink spot, the Hugh Manatee Bar. Here he’d met up with a friend named g’Hob, an alien of unknown species. g’Hob was actually a smashed together being consisting of five ferret-like forms. Strange isn’t the word for g’Hob. And he was also a very skilled doctor that had patched together various members of Miggy’s crew.
But the Captain was eventually called to the office of the Sysgov Cabinet chambers where he was given the message from a recent meeting between the PDRF and the FFK. It stated that the PDRF had henceforth surrendered all its assets to the PDRF and would dissolve itself as a nation. The remaining Naval forces in or near a FFK facility or an allied facility were to turn themselves and their ships over the those authorities. This information was delivered with great gusto by one Dauhnwright Snidely (name !!) was the financial manager for the Sysgov. This guy wanted nothing more than to confiscate the *Cabrillo* and all their existing equipment. He also wanted to see the crew sent to the mines so they and the Captain could work off the debts his no longer existing government could or would pay!
Miggy realized real quickly that he and his crew were in a very bad situation. How was he to continue running his ship and pay his crew. He thought his government had left funds sufficient enough to keep the ship running for several months. Those funds would also be available to pay his ship’s fees for going through the Bith controlled warp-gate. Unfortunately, a representative of the Bith bank was there in the room and stated that all funds of the PDRF were now dissolved and of no value. So, Captain Morrison and his crew had no way to get home. The only possible way for some of them to get home would be for them to work off their debts in the mines and then pay their individual passages through the Bith gate! Most of now all his crew were young people who would get very old, very quickly working in the mines.
While everything seemed pretty bleak for Captain Morrison, the recently appointed CEO of Sysgov, Marigold Prim, told him that she had a possible solution to his problems. Since he was already in possession of his ship, she stated that it was his to do as he pleased. She also stated that she had a potential buyer that would purchase the ship and therefore allow Captain Morrison to pay off all existing debts. This new owner wanted to keep the Captain and crew in place to be used for various cargo and salvage operations in the Pakrewan System. So, all that was needed was for Captain Morrison to meet with this prospective buyer and come to an agreement. CEO Prim was going to allow this to happen instead of allowing Snidely to confiscate the ship.
So, after some deep thinking and with a strange discussion with his crew, Morrison met with his potential new boss and owner. It turns out this was no other than g’Hob, the doctor. So now the adventure, strange adventure begins. I was pleasantly surprised that the book was pretty exciting. The *Cabrillo* takes on some very interesting assignments arranged by g’Hob and even he stays aboard as the ship’s doctor which works very well. Since this is the first book in the series, it will be interesting to see where it goes from here.
Book 2, “Salvage Harbinger”, is now available on Amazon. It’s also on my reading list.
[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. ]