Caleb Schumann’s Reviews > Space Carrier Avalon > Status Update

After a few weeks of treatment- and LOTS of simulator flight hours - Williams is finally cleared for reinstatement, though she's still to attend regular meetings with the ship surgeon. She has a discussion with Stanford and he apologises for not having helped her sooner, but she's pretty understanding of his situation. After reinstatement, she's selected to take part in a training exercise - Stanford vs Roberts. Ooh!

-once the jig was up, to take it rimward and become a mercenary to carve out an empire for himself. Fortunately, Blair's assignment threw a sledgehammer into all that and Larson's conspiracy was quickly, unknowingly dismantled. All this was the last gasps of a man with his house falling in on him. Still.. a major arms supplier implicated and a big part of the Reserve Fleet Station in on a treasonous plot? Lots to do.

-medical discharge, and furthermore tells Roberts to offer Randall life instead of a firing squad. He goes to him and does, and Randall spills all the beans to snatch up a plea; Larson had been stealing and selling squadrons of fighters to Excelsior, a military exporter in the Alliance, which was distributing them under the table to third parties. He'd also concocted a hairbrained conspiracy to seize Avalon-

So, they investigate. But first, finding out what to do with Randall- Roberts decides to put it up to Williams, who's been recently transferred to Avalon. She's in very bad shape - mentally and physically, thanks to the paralytic nanites Liago used going haywire - but she's well enough to talk to Roberts after being calmed down following when she was awoken. She decides to stay in the service instead of taking a-

-them, they overcharge their stunners to fry his ass. A company of marines and MPs from Avalon helps secure the station, and Larson is soon found dead- an apparent suicide, though Khadem, the station's Marshall, quickly determines otherwise., he was murdered. But at who's order? And furthermore, why's the station got 12 squadrons of fighters instead of six?
A conspiracy appears to be afoot.

To ensure Williams - Randall's victim - isn't subject to any retaliation after Stanford comes and fesses up about how he'd been blackmailed by Larson, Roberts contacts the station's security to arrange her being taken into protective custody. Just in time too, as Larson's brutish right hand, Liago, shoots her with a paralytic to haul her off to airlock her. Station security catches up and after he opens fire on-

Roberts meets with some of his ship's NCOs and they discuss personnel- some to be transferred, some.. not. As it turns out, Randall stalked and raped one of the junior officers, and Larson covered it up for him by blackmailing Stanford, who's been smuggling alcohol. After being informed Roberts immediately calls up the captain & the Marshall, and Randall's arrest is promptly ordered and effected.

We get a POV from Stanford, who's taking some of the outdated fighters back to the base station of Avalon's squadron to be mothballed. He has a meeting with his former superior, Larson - closely watched by the intimidating Liago - and Larson threatens to expose him for alcohol smuggling and possibly hurt him if Stanford reveals some unknown trespass he himself has committed to his new superiors. Uh oh.

-to do anything other than show the flag in frontier systems, as it's latest - and probably final - voyage would seem to be. With 280ish pages and five more books ahead of us, somehow I think complications will arise.

If he'd hoped the issues were only technical, though, Roberts was sorely mistaken. Some of his pilots are arrested for drug smuggling and stealing parts, and the captain informs him the ship is infested with poor discipline and degeneracy. At the very least his FCs seem sound, as he finds after investigating some of the rumors around them- still, Roberts has his work cut out for him if the Avalon ends up needing-