Retaliation

Exodus: Empires at War #13

by Doug Dandridge

The Caca offensive into the New Terran Empire is on its last legs, and the Imperial Fleets and those of its Allies are on the move.

The Cacas have new technologies themselves, and new tactics to go along with them, and they are determined to keep the humans out of their space, battling through the territories they have captured from the human and Fenri Empires

Admirals Lenkowski and Mgonda are in the lead of the two largest fleets in the history of the Perseus Arm. Tens of thousands of vessels, tens of millions of people. Those people are ready for the fight of their lives in space, while the soldiers of Field Marshal Baggett and Brigadier Walborski are prepared to contest the worlds the Cacas control.

The trillions of Caca slaves are hungering for freedom, and they are prepared to give their lives so that their people might control their own destinies. Desperate people can take desperate measures. And that includes the Ca'cadasans. Their young Emperor has ordered that they will give their lives willingly to destroy the invaders. While Sean has launched an audacious attack on the center of the Caca Empire, with the intention of cutting off the head of the snake and winning the war. Plans don't always work, since both sides have them, and when they come into conflict many variables can tilt the balance

Genres: Science Fiction, Military Fiction, Space Opera

311 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 3, 2017

About the author

Doug Dandridge was born in Venice Florida in 1957, the son of a Florida native and a Mother of French Canadian descent. An avid reader from an early age, Doug has read most of the classic novels and shorts of Science Fiction and Fantasy, as well as multiple hundreds of historical works. Doug has military experience including Marine Corps JROTC, Active Duty Army, and the Florida National Guard. He attended Florida State University, studying Biology, Geology, Physics, and Chemistry, and receiving a BS in Psychology. Doug then studied Clinical Psychology at the University of Alabama, with specific interests in Neuropsychology and Child Psychology, completing a Masters and all course work required for a PhD. He has worked in Psychiatric Hospitals, Mental Health Centers, a Prison, a Juvenile Residential Facility, and for the his last seven years in the work force for the Florida Department of Children and Families. Since March of 2013 he has worked as a full time writer. Doug has been writing on and off for fifteen years. He concentrates on intelligent science fiction and fantasy in which there is always hope, no matter how hard the situation. No area of the fantastic is outside his scope, as he has completed works in near and far future Science Fiction, Urban and High Fantasy, Horror, and Alternate History.
Doug has published 34 books on Amazon, with over 230,000 sales with 5,000 reviews averaging 4.6 stars. He will be publishing his first traditionally published book in 2018, followed by the second book of the contracted series. Also in the planning stages are post apocalyptic and alternate history series.

Reviews

[Per Gunnar · Rating 5 out of 5]

With Retaliation, the 13th installment in the Exodus: Empires at War series, we finally arrive at a moment that I have been waiting for a long time. The moment of some serious Ca’cadasan arse kicking.

I really like this series. As far as I am concerned it is one of the best military space operas around right now. The writing and the characters are so good not to mention the space combat which is just excellent.

A lot of the book is spent on moving the story forward to the main event. The Caca’s are of course not just sitting around and waiting to be hammered and they are having some surprises of their own so the road is slippery and filled with potholes. It of course doesn’t help that the author, sorry the Cacas, are borrowing a few tricks from, shall we say, another Empire in another place and another time.

As usual we get to view the conflict from the side of the Caca’s as well and I quite like this. Especially when the Cacas are in for some surprises which is quite frequent in this installment.

I am not sure whether I like the young Emperor of the Caca’s though. Well, I am not supposed to actually like him of course but I am not sure I like him even as a unlikable bad guy. He usurped the throne from his predecessor by less than honorable methods but apart from assassination skills he is mostly incompetent. Actually he is a power hungry asshole with a much too inflated ego. His personality does increase the reading pleasure of the some of the surprise moments in the book though so…

Although the Cacas do get the ass whooping they deserve their empire is large and, given the content of the last chapter of the book I think it is safe to assume that the New Terran Empire still have their future work cut out for them as well as a few more nasty surprises coming their way.

I am of course eagerly looking forward to be reading about this in the next book(s).

[Leif Dolan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Learn your history!

Never forget! Using tactics from the past has helped out future humans how to win a war. Pearl harbor and the Doolittle raid can still teach us something. This book used our history to make a strong sci-fi story. This is a good book to read. It is best if you read them in order. And it is worth it

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s been awhile since I’ve read a book in this series. I had picked up one recently only to realize it was book 16 and I had left off at book 12, so I have a lot of reading to do!

The Empire, ruled by Emperor Sean Ogden Lee Romanov continues to go on. it seems like it has gone on forever and I’m sure that’s more so for the military involved on both sides. The Empire is fighting the Cas’cadasans and are steadily pushing them back out of Empire territory. Now Sean wants to take the war to the Cas’cadasans and show them what it feels like to have their own worlds under devastating attack. The only problem with this is that the Cas’cadas use slaves to do most of their manual labor. So, worlds conquered by the Cas’cadas are still populated by their native inhabitants but now under the Master Cas’adas. Rule by Cas’cadasans is harsh since no alien race is considered equal to the Cas’cadasans.

Sean will have to walk a fine line between killing Cas’cadasans on a planet and wiping out the indigenous species. He prefers to start guerrilla operations getting the local native population to rise up against the Cas’cadasans and retake their own planet. He knows this will result in a lot of native deaths, but it’s preferred over just bombing a planet into oblivion from space.

Sean has also sent out a secret mission to hit at the very heart of the Cas’cadan empire. While they have already devastated his own capital world which is just now recovering, he wants payback and he needs to show his people that they can strike deep into Cas’cadan territory the same as they did to the Empire. Whether this secret mission works or not is something you’ll have to read about.

All the characters from the preious twelve books are still here, surprisingly none of the main characters have been killed in this war, yet! The only annoying thing about this series right now is that the author has gotten deep into the accounting business when it comes to missiles and ships. I don’t think we really need to know the exact number of missiles fired at each small squadron and how many missiles they fired back. Just focus on the results and that should be enough.

Still, this is a good reading series and, as I said, I already have a bunch more books in this series to read now.

[Joe D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The entire series was great. A lot of "...edge of your seat..." and "...start skimming over anything distracting from the action....". I've read a few of these long series and there's a tendency in them for the humans to grow so powerful that they seem unstoppable and the books become a bit dull by the end but the author deals with this very well. Definitely will be looking at other series from the author.

[Samuel Pearson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great continuation of this series

The author has turned this series around after the Time strike book. I think both his Emperor and the author has grown so much in this book. This universe is full of more great stories and we can see a great ending of this part of the series.

[Bryson Riordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

No further episodes

It was pretty good when you get to the end . then just leaves you wanting more, or maybe you have something in the future?