It’s been a tough voyage for Lieutenant Astrid Amundsen. The LNS Ranger is almost home. Astrid is ready for some rest. She’s not going to get any!A solar storm is interfering with the LNS Ranger’s efforts to contact her destination—Skydock Eight. The Koalovians have seized this opportunity to attack the Skydock and have eliminated most of the Skydock’s crew.
It’s a race against time, as Astrid and C-Squad prepare to aid the Skydock. Astrid leads a desperate effort to reach the remnant of the Skydock’s crew and come to their defense before they’re annihilated by the enemy.
Among the four Navy personnel Astrid’s team needs to save is Whitaker, one of Astrid’s fellow midshipmen from her Annapolis days.
Astrid is impeded by wounds she recently received, including the loss of a finger and a serious wound to her stomach.
The Koalovians have taken actions which threaten the Ranger and the nearby LNS Switchblade. It’s a formula for probable disaster.
Will Astrid reach Whitaker’s people on time? Or will the four remaining Skydock crew-members join the rest of the Skydock’s crew in death?
It’s “Who Goes There?” meets Astrid Amundsen, when it isn’t always clear who is human and who is a killer alien.
The answers are found in Switchblade, Book Four in the Astrid Amundsen Military Science Fiction Series.
It is nice to see the series continue. Seems simplistic with the small military squad based world. All firefight. The 1st LT leads the squad of about 7, and operates as de-facto #2 for the Space Carrier (she is Infantry and Space Wing commander). Everybody else (in the squad) is a 2nd LT, a fighter pilot/infantry fighter. Seems Astrid is the only one with a college education. Everyone appears to be in their early 20s, though the maturity seems to be about high school level. While the "combat" scenes are graphic, the narrow focus seems limiting and not really realistic. There are a lot of chapters, each linking to a key phrase and an advance of the story line.
Excellent series, continuously exciting and entertaining!!!!!
Congratulations to Alan Householder for this amazing series. It’s hard to find such an interesting and exciting author who not only writes intelligently but also provides top rated plots, characters and excitement in the stories. I’m really looking forward to the next book in the series.
The replicants make this a very tense novel. Good fights. I expect that there would be much less in the way of armor and hull strength on a tidal spaceships.. like the stories though.
On their way back to earth Astrid and the crew of Ranger get a mayday call from a skydock. Captain Banning orders the ship to go and help. But it's never that simple, the skydock is under attack and the enemy are using replicants again.
I'm amazed that this author can write so many fantastic novels, I hope that he never stops writing. His books are some of the best Entertainment I have read and worth the time to read them. Thank you for a very fun entertaining read.