The Alliance has been fighting a losing battle against the Syndicate Worlds for over a century. Now, Captain John "Black Jack" Geary, who returned to the fleet after a hundred-year suspended animation, must keep the Alliance one step ahead of its merciless foe.
Outnumbered by the superior forces and firepower of the Syndicate Worlds, the Alliance fleet continues its dangerous retreat across the enemy star system. Led by the legendary Captain John "Black Jack" Geary, who returned to the fleet after a hundred-year suspended animation, the Alliance is desperately trying to return home with its captured prize: the key to the Syndic hypernet, and the key to victory.
In the midst of recovering from their successful if casualty prone first mission, the crew of the Alliance Space Ship Vorpal Blade are suddenly scrambled back into action. All other priorities take second place as word arrives on earth of a gate colony which has fallen to an unidentified alien assault. As the only space ship currently available to the Human-Adar Alliance, the Vorpal Blade is dispatched to find out what happened to the colony, rescue any survivors and learn the identity of the attackers.
Kent's popular naval hero returns to England after the capture of Martinique and finds a brief respite in the arms of his mistress, Lady Catherine Somervell. But a new conflict looms, as France forges an alliance with America, threatening British trade routes.
Is There Still a West?: The Future of the Atlantic Alliance
The international response to the attacks of 9/11 promised a new sense of unity between the United States and its European allies, but subsequent disagreements over Iraq have made the Western alliance seem tentative at best. Is There Still a West? looks beyond recent events to put disagreements within NATO into historical perspective, exploring how cultural, demographic, economic, and military factors since the 1940s have affected future prospects for security cooperation.
