Siobhan Dunmoore was losing the war one ship at a time. The Shrehari Empire had burned more hulls out from under her than any other officer in the Fleet. Some said she was too aggressive. Others said too reckless. The enemy called her something else?something they spat with fear. None of it mattered. Not all her enemies wore Imperial uniforms. And the only reputation she had left was for bad luck.
She was dragging another wreck home, crew half-dead, systems failing. This time she'd bluffed her way out by the skin of her teeth. She wanted rest. The Admiralty wanted her back in the fight.
They gave her Stingray. The Fleet's cursed frigate. Captain disgraced, crew broken, ship rotting. The last of her kind still limping through the war. Admirals whispered about scrapping her, breaking up the jinx. But the war was bleeding ships, and anything that could still fire had to fight.
So Dunmoore went from staring down the Empire's finest on a battleship's burning bridge to commanding a crew ready to mutiny, admirals sharpening knives, and a mystery that stank of death. Stingray's curse wasn't just sailor's talk. Something was wrong. The crew kept their mouths shut. Politics pressed in. Her own demons clawed at her.
Taking that frigate into battle was suicide. But Dunmoore had never walked away from a fight. Failure wasn't an option. Defeat wasn't acceptable. Death was just a hole in the ground. Victory was the only honor left. She'd drag Stingray back from hell?or go down damned forever.
Autorentext
Eric Thomson is my pen name. I'm a former Canadian soldier who spent more years in uniform than he expected, serving in both the Regular Army (Infantry) and the Army Reserve (Armoured Corps). I spent several years as an Information Technology executive for the Canadian government before leaving the bowels of the demented bureaucracy to become a full-time author. I've been a voracious reader of science-fiction, military fiction and history all my life, assiduously devouring the recommended Army reading list in my younger days and still occasionally returning to the classics for inspiration. Several years ago, I put my fingers to the keyboard and started writing my own military sci-fi, with a definite space opera slant, using many of my own experiences as a soldier as an inspiration for my stories and characters. When I'm not writing fiction, I indulge in my other passions: photography, hiking and scuba diving, all of which I've shared with my wife, who likes to call herself my #1 fan, for more than thirty years.
Klappentext
Siobhan Dunmoore was not having a good war.
She's had more ships shot out from under her by the invading Shrehari Empire than any other officer in the Fleet. Some called her overly aggressive. Others simply called her reckless. What the enemy called her was something else altogether. That she gave the Shrehari a good drubbing along the way didn't matter in the least, because not all her enemies wore an Imperial uniform. A reputation for bad luck was pretty much the only reputation she had left.
Sailing yet another ruined starship home after a near defeat, she wanted nothing more than a long, long rest, because this time, she had escaped by the thinnest of bluffs. Unfortunately, the Admiralty had other ideas.
The frigate Stingray was known as the unluckiest ship in the Fleet and her Captain had just been removed in disgrace for cowardice. Some in the Admiralty would dearly love to retire the old warhorse. After all, she was the last of her type left in service, and perhaps it was time to break up the jinx permanently, along with the crew. But in the midst of an interstellar war, every ship that could fight was needed.
In short order, Dunmoore went from staring down the Empire's finest on the bridge of a wrecked battleship to taking on a demoralized, semi-mutinous crew, scheming Admirals and a deadly mystery. Stingray's bad luck wasn't just superstition gone rampant. Between a crew that won't talk, political enemies who want her gone, and her personal demons, she's got her hands full. Taking the frigate into battle under those conditions would seem foolish to anyone else, but Dunmoore was never one to shrink from a good fight. Failure was not an option, and defeat not an acceptable alternative, for there was no honor in death, only in victory. She would redeem herself and her ship or be damned for all eternity.