5 Small Stars

Starting a new series again. I’ve read books by both of these authors and they write pretty good. The only trepidation I had about diving into this book is that it references another series, the “Ixan Legacy Trilogy”, as a prelude to this series. I haven’t read that series, but as it turns out this new one stands pretty much on it’s own.

Captain Vin Husher did something in the aforementioned series that caused the death of everyone in a parallel universe, and evil twin universe of his own. He even was able to capture his twin from the other universe and had him incarcerated in the brig on his current starship. This “alternate” Vin Husher was deadly and had proven himself so by torturing on of Captain Husher’s closest friend, “Fesky”, a brilliant combat fighter pilot. What Captain Husher planned to do with his evil twin wasn’t really explained, but it’s a good thing he had him aboard as you’ll find out.

Right off the bat, you’ll find yourself going into combat although there has been peace in the galaxy for some time now. A faction called the Quatro want admission into the Interstellar Union and are looking to take over some currently owned human worlds. Why they think the United Common Wealth (UCH) would stand for such was a mystery. Of course the UCH wouldn’t allow the Quatro to take any of it’s planets for any reason. Yet, something else was going on that would cause Captain Vin Husher and his starship to go on an entirely different mission.

A distress signal had arrived at UCH headquarters a while back. It was encrypted and until someone could break the encryption, it was going to stay a mystery. Admiral Iver, Captain Husher’s immediate boss tasked Husher with the job of finding out what was in the message and where it would lead. Husher had some interesting contacts within the Interstellar Union that didn’t care much for IU politics, so they gladly worked on the mysterious message.

The message was from another universe. It gave the coordinates of where help was supposed to come, but no indication of who or what had sent the message. Since Earth now stood alone, it was thought that they could possibly find some new allies if they helped whomever sent this distress message. So, Admiral Iver ordered Captain Husher and the UCH Rentless to make conrtact in this alternate universe and also try to make some new friends.

This mission turns out to be a very dangerous one. It’s also one they might never return from!