Description

Novel by author Lindsay H.F. Brambles ("Zero-Option", "Choices", "The Wall" -- all featured on this site).

John Carter was born and raised a spacer, his life determined before he was even born. Now a captain in Fleet, he finds himself questioning his commitment to a path in life he did not choose. But Fleet is all the life he has ever really known; and in a world where spacers are ‘crippled’ and essentially outcasts, he is a man with few choices. To leave Fleet would be to leave life itself. But Fleet is old and battered, a pale shadow of the force it once was in the Earth Empire, and its enemies are powerful and growing stronger by the day.

On Inkasar he watches as a mission he should never have had degenerates into chaos. He is lucky to escape alive, and the fleet he commands limps out of the system in need of repairs and R&R. But the political leaders of the Federation have other ideas, and Carter’s fleet, beaten and weary after the debacle on Inkasar, is ordered to Obsidian, a backwater world of religious fundamentalists, out on the Fringes.

In the Obsidian system the two most powerful corporates in the empire are set to wage war. At stake: an inhabitable planet and the transit point that lies close to it, a gateway to a possible treasure-trove of riches that will make the victor the most dominant force in existence. But Danielle Grenier, the Secretary General of the Federation Assembly, is determined they will not have it, and she doesn’t care what she has to do to stop them—even if it means bending the very laws that are the foundation of the Federation she so strongly believes in.

Tensions rise as Fleet takes up position around Obsidian and on the surface of the planet. Fleet Marines, under the command of Colonel Suzanne Morrow, prepare to evacuate the population. In orbit, Carter’s ultimatum to the commanders of the corporate fleets lays the groundwork for all out war. As the situation deteriorates, the citizens of Obsidian scramble to secure allegiances.

Back on Isis station near Earth, Grenier wages a silent war with Admiral Christiana Novarro, abetted by her ally Admiral Silas Jackson, the head of Naval Intelligence, a man with ambitions of his own who is determined to replace Novarro and return Fleet to its former glory. Using the resources of his division, Jackson has conspired to send one of his operatives to Obsidian to ensure that Fleet is the victor.

As ships battle in orbit about Obsidian and conflict rages below, the odds seem stacked against Fleet. But Carter knows his enemies well, and events are about to take place that will change the face of the empire forever. The question is, will history remember Carter as a hero or as the man responsible for setting the Federation on the path to destruction?

One thing is certain: lives will be changed, and nothing will ever be the same again.