This is a very depressing book if you think about what’s going on in this future civilization. The corporations have taken over everything, even your life! You’re born to parents who have probably been working for one corporation or another all their lives. They are in debt to that corporation for everything single thing they do. Even you, when you reach school age will begin accumulating a life debt just for your education. And it keeps piling on. The apparent you and your parents live in is charged to your debt, the clothing you wear, supplied by the corporation, and the food you eat is all charged to your debt by the corporation! Oh, you get paid, but never enough to even put a dent on your life-debt to the corporation.
Then you decided to try something different and that is to become a Salvage Marine working for the corporation but getting bonuses for some of the work you do. You get paid a little better than the average citizen, but you do notice that you don’t get the best equipment to do your job. And salvage is your job. Sometimes you have to fight off other corporations for the salvage your corporation wants. Samuel Hyst has been a Salvage Marine for a long time now. Long enough to see those who were ahead of him all die in one salvage operation or another. You go into a salvage operation knowing that it will be contested by another corporation, so you’ll have to fight with the equipment you have. Fortunately, you’ll be up against other corporate salvage marines who are fighting with the same restrictions you are, until you’re not!
Boss Samuel Hyst, yeah he’s the equivalent of squad leader now, knows that each mission he’s been on lately is getting to be more Marine fighting than salvage. They are working beyond the Ellisian Line which is also known as necrospace or headspace. There are planets never before seen by anyone but they are rich with resources and the corporations of normal space are desperate enough to cross the Ellisian Line. There are self defenses built into some of the abandon cities they are finding on some of these dead planets. Their first forays on to these planets resulted in a lot of deaths but fortunately, most of the dead were penal colony prisoners. Now that option has become too costly for the corporations so they’re going to just use the Salvage Marines.
Yet, some Salvage Marines are becoming resentful of being sent into situations where they were not trained for, did not have the right or adequate equipment and they should have been the corporations last resort because they are there for salvage, not for the fighting. So, there’s this strange idea of unionizing floating around the salvage marine battalions. This idea is kind of foreign to citizens of the corporations. It’s long been taboo to even talk about unions or any organization of corporate employees. Yet, the idea seems to be growing, but Samuel Hyst hasn’t bought into this idea, yet.
He had been on leave from this previous missions that he survived. He and his wife Sura had made some plans now that it seemed they had put together a good sum of money to buy out their life-debts but still need to pay off the life-debt of their son Orion. Fortunately, it’s not a large debt since he was recently born, and they are contemplating about heading out to the frontier and setting up their own homestead. That’s a dream a lot of corporate citizens can have, but never see come to reality. Yet, Samuel and Sura are getting close to that point. Then the Grotto Corporation goes to war with the Helion Corporation and all leave is cancelled and no further separations from the salvage marines will be granted. So back to war goes Samuel. Still, Sura and Orion are going to space station 16 so at least they’ll be out from under the corporation pending Samuel’s return.
Once again, Samuel finds himself going to another salvage mission, but he also finds out that his unit is going to spearhead the mission against the Helion Corporation. They are sending in elite hired Merchants Militant or hired mercenaries. These mercenaries are very well armed and armored. This is their job and they are well prepared for it. The Salvage Marines are not! So, this fight isn’t going so well and things even get worse.
So does Boss Samuel Hyst even survive this latest mission? Will he ever see his wife and son and will he really achieve his dream of living on his own land out in the frontier. Well, the book does seem to end this series so you’ll need to read it in it’s entirety to see if that’s true.
==[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.]==