A new series by John Walker, one of many he has recently released or so it seems to me. This particular book seemed to be very short. It’s kind of predictable once you know what’s going on.
The Terran Alliance has achieved the unthinkable. There is peace throughout the galaxy and it has been that way for some time. The citizens of the Alliance are enjoying this period of peace while some are still training for war. A war with whom is the biggest question on everyone’s mind at the Terran Naval Academy at Ignis Prime.
The Senior Class was getting ready for Graduation Day. Elias Renn was one of those Cadets. He and several of his classmates were just informed that they would be taking a cruise out to the outer boundaries as a final exam. The starships would be commanded by instructors who had also grown up in a Navy that had never gone to war. Oh, they did track down and deal with some pirates out among the colonies, but those occasions were few and far between. Everyone in the Navy now relied on Doctrine as to how the Navy should work and prepare for a war that probably will never come.
So, Elias was on the TNS *Horizon* following Lieutenant Jalen Korrin around from department to department aboard the ship. Elias has yet to be told what his assigned position will be while he visits with several of his friends. Tara Holt is one of those friends assigned to Engineering. Tara is something of a genius when it comes to starship systems. She is widely read preferring to spend her spare time reading technical journals rather than socializing. Still, the perfect position for her on this training mission was in engineering. She soon learned that her instructor Lieutenant Grent, wasn’t all that great of an engineer because he strictly went by Doctrine. He had little imagination and as long as things went as they were supposed to, he could handle engineering. He, like the other Lieutenants had never been tested in critical situations.
Now back to Elias. As he was following the starship’s Captain, Lieutenant Korrin, around, he asked what his assignment would be. Lt. Korrin simply stated that Elias was to be his XO, or second in command. This surprised Elias since he didn’t feel that he was probably the best of the senior Cadets to fill this role. He knew that Rafe Dray was assigned as the pilot, but he would probably have been a better choice as XO. Yet, this was his assignment and he was going to fill it to his best abilities.
The training mission got started with a total of ten ships including Admiral Sio’s flagship. She was one of the senior commanders that had war-fighting experience from a long time ago. Her opinion on the peacetime strict adherence to Doctrine was widely known and not necessarily appreciated. Everyone was wondering why she and her flagship were part of this training cruise.
As you can guess, this training mission doesn’t go quite as planned. Unknown to this fleet, the Terran Navy had already lost a few outer rim listening posts. How they were lost was unknown and no one was making much of an effort to find out. Unfortunately, the training fleet, manned mostly by Naval Academy Cadets will run into something very unexpected. Elis Renn and Tara Holt along with a number of their classmates aboard the TNS *Horizon* will be tested beyond their wildest dreams.
The Terran Alliance’s peace will be soon shattered by an unknown enemy. They will not announce themselves and will not stop their attackes. Is there anyone within the Terran Alliance Navy who can think outside Doctrine and do whatever it takes to win. We’ll be finding out as this series continues in book 2, “Hamish’s Point”, 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. ]==