The second book in Grimm’s War science fiction series, With Grimm Resolve, follows about 6 months after book 1, Against All Odds. (Read review here.) Jacob Grimm, newly promoted to Commander, has just returned from command school to retake command of the United Systems Alliance navy destroyer Intercept.
The USA is still in a state of peace, with political leadership divided between those who want to avoid war at all costs and those who recognize that the impending conflict with the Caliphate is likely unavoidable and seek to build up the Alliance’s military strength. The USA annexed the Zuckabar system after Dr. Bellait discovered the wormhole in it that connects to the allied Consortium systems 900 light years away. The Interceptor also discovered that the Terraforming Guild is far more than simply a technically advanced corporation. Now in With Grimm Resolve the Interceptor must help derail the Guild’s immediate threat.
Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers
With Grimm Resolve opens with the new governor of Zuckabar, an Alliance marine general, explaining the new facts of life to the Guild man Mr Albatross who wants to collect their delinquent payment for the terraformers. When the Alliance took over Zuckabar they discovered that the Guild had placed firmware within all the computer systems that meant the Guild could spy on and control events. Further, the Alliance discovered the same chips in the Alliance-produced hardware. Since the Alliance and Zuckabar had bought systems from completely different suppliers, this means the Guild has tentacles throughout. More damning, the Guild had to know that the Caliphate had a base in Zuckabar system and had run a slaving ring from Kremlin station. Mr. Albatross no longer can access the terraformers and the governor kicks him and all Guild employees off planet and out of the Alliance.
Interceptor moves to interdict cargo ship Komondo which darted into the Zuckabar system and is immediately leaving. It’s a little odd and Jacob Grimm decides to check them out, if nothing else to give the crew a chance to practice. The Komondo does not respond when hailed, or when Intercept shoots just in front of them, in fact Intercept must send a torpedo very close to get their attention. Grimm sends a boarding party. The other crew is scruffy, acts nervous and then attacks, leaving the executive officer Yuki badly burnt and the Komondo crew all dead. Grimm decides to head back to Kremlin station to get Yuki further care, resupply the ship and allow short leave.
His in system commander instead orders Grimm to take the Intercept to check remote mining station Gamma 7 that sent a distress. This next part of the plot, covered in 3 paragraphs here, doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
It takes 50 hours to get to the station and they find it seemingly deserted, but with no apparent damage. Grimm takes a small group over to check and they run into some mercenaries with a battle drone. They manage to shoot the mercenaries but the station explodes, sending the group off into space while the still-active drone jams all communications. The mercenary ship tries to attack but Intercept’s crew destroys it then searches for the people, including Grimm, who were onboard the station when it exploded.
Grimm’s helmet is cracked and he’s losing air and the emergency beacons don’t work with the jamming. He triangulates the jamming source and begins to move towards it, also finds Sargent Jennings who shares her air supply and together they find and destroy the still-active drone which is jamming communications. Once jamming ends Interceptor can find and retrieve the group.
The crew left onboard Interceptor noticed that the rail delivery arms, which were to shoot the mined materials towards Zuckabar, were out of alignment. Grimm wants to find out what happened to the mining crew, they were not on station. He decides to trace the rail arms trajectory as it is the only clue he has to the missing crew’s location.
Grimm discovers an automated station way way out on the mining station’s delivery trajectory. The station is set up for stealth and does not look finished. They wait a day or so when another ship arrives. Following the other ship they discover a previously unknown starlane – something that is nearly incredible given its location and the fact new lanes have enormous value.
They also run into a ship that attacks with a nearly invincible weapon, a gravity laser. The ship damages Interceptor but cannot destroy it before it in turn is destroyed. The weapon has one weakness; it must be aimed directly by moving the ship into alignment and there is a distance limitation.
The starlane ends at a most unusual system that initially appears empty, which would be fatal since the Intercept would have no way to return home. In fact there is a star, but it is a dark star, a stellar phenomenon known only in theory. Further there is a large planet orbiting the star with thousands of satellites set to illuminate the surface to grow food. The planet has a space elevator with a small station. Grimm and crew are extremely curious and know the missing miners are likely either on the station or the planet which they call Wonderland.
They realize the Guild owns this place and likely has extremely good security and can repel a straightforward attack, plus they aren’t there to hurt people, just to retrieve the missing miners. The marines land on the station in power armor (after a multi-hour drop in space, ugh), manage to secure it before the Intercept’s shuttle arrives with help. They find a low level, disgruntled Guild employee, Vesper, who volunteers to help them. He shows them where the miners likely are on the planet and provides the information they need to access the elevator.
The marines take the elevator down, cause mayhem to distract from the miner rescue, get the miners and leave with Vesper and the miners. However the miners are missing all the females, wives, daughters, crew because the Guild’s mercenaries spaced them. Vesper says the Guild’s policy is to separate the sexes and since Wonderland is men-only, they killed the ladies. The Guild’s on-planet bosses kicked off the self-destruct too, leaving the planet-side facility in ruins.
Intercept and Grimm’s crew gets away but runs into the Guild’s armed patrol. Four of the Guild ships get into the starlane and manage to inflict more damage on Interceptor. Now those same ships, all armed with the gravity laser, are in the Zuckabar system.
Interceptor was running low on food even before Wonderland – they had planned to replenish supplies at Kemlin station – and the extra people mean everyone is on short rations. Cook Mendez makes stew which lasts them until back to the Zuckabar system, albeit millions of miles further out than they had hoped.
Simultaneously with all the Interceptor action Nadia Dagher is on Kremlin station looking for more Guild infiltrators. She finds one, Mr. Pelican, but it takes her a while to figure out what he is up to. Then she realizes he is trying to control the space access system, disabling it to allow an attack.
Also simultaneously, Mr. Albatross and the Guild are not happy with the Alliance. They want it to surrender, and to that end have offered a stealth ship to the Caliphate. Guild thinks the Caliphate will attack a few minor places on the Alliance capital planet Alexandria and force a surrender but the Caliphate instead uses nuclear weapons from orbit to destroy the capital city and its surroundings. The death count is over 12 million. The stealth ship is visible immediately once it fires on the planet and the defenders destroy the ship but too late, the seat of government and much of the industry and commerce and millions of civilians are dead.
Back to the Interceptor whose crew is out of food and knows the Guild is vastly more powerful and ruthless than anyone realized. Interceptor faces four Guild armed vessels that are between them and the very far away planet and station. They must warn Zuckabar the Guild is attacking and hopefully, get some help for themselves.
The Guild ships are capable, well-armed and defended, but the crews have little experience since the Guild heretofore had not fought anyone. Grimm’s crew is able to exploit this, sends a message torpedo to warn Kremlin and Zuckabar planet and destroy three Guild ships. The fourth Guild ship surrenders. There is a one-line statement that the Guild did bombard Kremlin station, presumably from the automated stealth station.
Nadia is waiting for Jacob in Kremlin station and they spend several blissful days together before news of the nuclear attack on Alexandria reaches them.
Plot Puzzlers
I reread and re-reread this novel because I couldn’t figure out the Guild. We learn their board of directors loves loves loves complicated plots with lots of moving pieces that use their technical superiority. Even so this book stumps me on a few counts. I am probably overanalyzing this.
- Why did the Guild need to re-aim the rail delivery arms? The mining crew leader says the Guild took over his station to get the codes to get its bombardment past Kremlin’s automated defense. So what did they need the Gamma 7 rail for? It points to their stealth station, but why? If it is solely to delivery minerals from Zuckabar that seems awfully complex.
- Why use an automated drone on Gamma 7 once the miners were gone?
- Once the Guild got the delivery codes, what were they going to do with the miners?
You don’t need to know the answers to enjoy the story but these points distracted me enough that I stopped in mid-flow to go back and trace through Jacob Grimm’s thoughts.
Characters and Why With Grimm Resolve Works
Sometimes the second book in a series is weak, with the author either adding in a bunch of extraneous characters or setting new distractions and not developing the world or the characters. Author Haskell avoids this by spending the most time on the same characters he used in the first book, Grimm, marine Jennings, cook Mendez. Nadia gets some page time but is a minor player in this book.
The story works in part because the plot moves fast and the characters are good. Even more important, the plot is interesting and offers realistic challenges and comprehendible problems. We can relate to the boarding party drifting in space after Gamma 7 explodes, and we can appreciate Grimm’s determination to find the missing mining crew and we can definitely understand the Intercept running out of provisions.
Some of the solutions to the conflicts, such as sending the marines down to the space elevator in their armor, are more sci-fi than the simple problem of no supper, but Haskell explains the background well enough we can get the picture. He also doesn’t wave a wand and make the armor suits fun or exciting, at least not when stuck inside for almost a full day.
Just as with the first book, Against All Odds, Haskell makes people the central players. The technology is there, it’s sketched out with enough detail we can understand it and its limitations and it is not boring. Based on a lot of science fiction I’ve tried to read, this must be difficult for authors and Haskell does an excellent job.
Further, the bad guys in With Grimm Resolve are people, flawed people yes, but recognizably human. The Guild characters are doing what they believe is right based on their training that the Guild is more important than they are, and we see the lower level employees actively transgressing the company’s policies. Vesper works hard to make his life bearable and jumps at the chance to leave with the Intercept, giving heartfelt aid. The station operator who sees the Intercept decides to ignore it, as he doesn’t want the supervisor yelling at him and he’s more interested in watching a movie. The captain of the last Guild ship has his crew wipe the computer and destroy the gravity laser but he surrenders, preferring to live despite his training.
Both Mr. Albatross and Mr. Pelican strike me as villains who would happily twirl their mustache and gloat. Mr. Albatross was metaphorically rubbing his hands and cackling when he anticipated the Alliance caving in to the Guild’s monetary demands and later their surrender to the Caliphate’s threat.
Contrarily the Caliphate characters are as thoroughly wicked as one can imagine. The first fellow, to whom Albatross offers the stealth ship, mistreats several ladies and has one lady who has not yet lost herself to the slave collar. He sends that one – whom he knows is well aware of everything – to his soldiers to amuse themselves with. Evil. The Caliphate captain attacks the Alliance cities with nuclear bombardment. Evil.
The ending is a little abrupt. We know the Guild sent ships to the stealth station to install a huge power reactor and there is a sentence that the Guild did try to bombard Kremlin, but essentially the book ends without tying up those ends.
Also, just as with Against All Odds, the language is clean, no blasphemy or profanity or vulgar swearing. Yay!
Overall
I rated Against All Odds 4 stars, very good. With Grimm Resolve is not quite as good due to the plot questions and abrupt ending but it too is good enough to be
4 Stars.
I got my Kindle copy of With Grimm Resolve from Amazon. It is available in audiobook and paperback if you prefer.
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