Niko and her intrepid crew of the You Sexy Thing have received intelligence that indicates their nemesis Tubal Last, the pirate, is still alive.  Niko believes that Tubal will attempt to recapture Niko’s long-lost lover, Petalia; as allowing her escape to stand will damage his reputation.  Niko and Petalia had parted on poor terms with Niko promising to never contact them again.  Now, Niko feels impelled to do so if only to warn Petalia of what might be coming after them.  Tracking them down leads the ship and crew to one of the Gates.  A Gate is leftover technology from an extinct and unknown race, termed the Forerunners, which enables ships to quickly traverse the universe.  Niko is hoping to find some sign that Petalia passed that way.  On the way to the Gate, they get the news that some Gates are shutting down; and no one knows why.  They also get gossip that an opportunistic anthropologist, who specializes in Forerunner technology, has discovered a way to reactivate the Gates.  And, coincidentally, the Gate they are heading towards is the next one to mysteriously shut down. The anthropologist, Jezli, did as promised and reopened the closed Gate.  But an unscrupulous ship’s Captain, Gnarl, was waiting for it and for his own reasons attempted to destroy her ship.  Unbeknownst to Niko, Thing was experimenting with autonomy and had made the decision to bring Jezli and her companion, Roxana, onboard; hidden in a cargo hold. They are hidden since Thing transported them without permission and now Thing isn’t sure about telling Niko. 

Atlanta, their newest crew member, is still agonizing over what her role in life should be now that she is no longer an Imperial Heir.  Frankly, watching her run around the ship and try out different roles was a bit tedious.  Talon, the surviving were-tiger, is still agonizing over the loss of his twin brother (he is also quite naïve and gullible); making him vulnerable. Gnarl takes advantage of the boy’s despair and talks him into accepting an illegal clone device which Gnarl hopes will give him blackmail power over Niko, whom he hates because she has one of his own crewmen and he wants him back.  Talon does accept the clone device and tricks Thing into helping him set up a type of incubator and not tell the Captain, Niko.

Jezli tells Niko about a Forerunner bit of technology that will help destroy the pirate Tubal, once and for all.  They just have to dig around inside a dead and abandoned Forerunner spaceship on the furthest edge of the universe.  This is, obviously, dangerous. A small plotline was the unforeseen effect Roxana had on Atlanta.  The author decided to gift her character Atlanta, with otherworldly powers acquired when Roxana dies inside the alien spaceship and passed them to her.  It was a silly bit of plot and obviously a lead-in to a future storyline; nothing more was made of it in this book.

Talon escapes Niko’s scrutiny, she has quite a bit on her plate, and continues nurturing his clone with the assistance of Thing.  He agonizes over this decision and finally decides to tell Niko before he decants the clone; unfortunately, she’s pretty busy over on the alien spaceship.  Thing determines the optimal time to decant the clone is reached so it does it without telling anyone, including Talon.  Unfortunately, since Talon did not follow protocols, the new clone was awakened without the dead brother’s memories; making the clone a tabula rasa and all Talon’s attempts to instill shared memories are violently rejected.

Needless to say, the group did emerge from the alien spaceship with the promised weapon.  But no one can fire it.  Apparently, only someone with genes from the Forerunners is able to fire the gun.  And, at last count, there was only a single representative still alive in the entire universe: Petalia.  So now Niko has another reason to find her estranged lover and hope she can convince them to help in their mutual problem of disposing of the murderous pirate.

Again, this was a very light read; in that, there is no deep purpose or principle.  Many things were introduced that had little or no impact on the plot.  Much was made of cooking, Atlanta befriended a cleaning droid which pissed off Thing but nothing came of either. We weren’t told why Gnarl was adamant about recovering his lost crewman, now part of Thing’s crew.  We didn’t get any backstory at all about Jezli even though she was intrinsic to this story. I particularly wanted to know more about her knowledge of Forerunner tech.  And that goes for Roxana and her mystical magic that she gave to Atlanta; the reader is pretty much in the dark.  It seems to this reader that the author’s main goal was simply to flesh out the crew more and give us episodic views into their character.  The plot sort of seemed an after-thought.  I was hoping for more.  Other readers may enjoy the characters more; especially if they don’t want a dark epic story and don’t mind a boatload of dangling story threads.  Obviously, there will be another story (if the publisher is happy with it…) and if it lands on my desk I’ll probably read it.  ~~ Catherine Book

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