Commander Elias Quist, a Mars officer seconded to the Rim “for the duration of the mission,” expects a six-week exam cruise with a fleet of junk ships, cadets, and old-timers recalled from retirement. Then the engineered civil war between Earth, Mars, and the Rim erupts, the real navies burn in harbour, and the training fleet at the system's edge is suddenly the last formation the Rim can still manoeuvre. Quist rises one funeral and one detachment at a time, from fifth in command to the man who must plan the last stand.
This is military SF measured in people, not tonnage — do-more-with-less ingenuity, found family forged in drills and funerals, and a creeping wrongness at the system's edge, in the vein of Battlestar Galactica (2004). It ends in a stand that saves people, not territory.
The Books
Book 1
Muster
One line in his orders, act as a Rim officer for the duration of the cruise, is suddenly all that stands between Quist and internment as an enemy alien. The exam fleet gets no more drills, only a war.
Coming soon
Book 2
Foundry
The Reserve stops waiting for weapons and starts building them, in mills crewed by civilians who never enlisted. Then, to buy the fleet one more day, someone flies a flag they have no right to fly.
Coming soon
Book 3
Salvo
Decreed the Rim’s entire navy, the fleet is offered the line battle that will end the war, and refuses to fight it. Finch has one maneuver left in him, and less time than he will admit.
Coming soon
Book 4
Remnant
Corran surrendered, and Corran was erased. With no ground left worth holding, Quist turns his fleet into an evacuation convoy and spends it, hull by salvaged hull, to carry the last civilians home.
Coming soon
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