Friends in Command (Book 4 of Sons of the Starfarers) by Joe Vasicek

Release date: July 1, 2015

Subgenre: Space opera, military science fiction

About Friends in Command:

THE FUTURE OF THE OUTWORLDS NOW LIES IN UNCERTAIN HANDS.

The war for the Outworlds is on. The Imperials may have lost the first round, but they're back—and this time, a ragtag flotilla isn't going to stop them.

When Aaron recieves a captain's commission in the new Outworld Confederacy, Mara is his natural choice for second in command. But Mara never expected to live past the first few battles. She only joined the resistance to avenge her father, and fears the monster she's starting to become. The only thing she has left to live for now is her friends.

The Imperials aren't the only enemy in this war, though. The friends must face a threat from within in

SONS OF THE STARFARERS
BOOK IV: FRIENDS IN COMMAND

Excerpt:

 

Mara Soladze never expected her greatest moment of triumph to feel so empty.
The SMG bucked in her hand as she sprayed bullets across the starship bunkroom. Her hand was steady, her grip firm. The three Gaian Imperial officers cried out in terror as she cut them to the floor. They fell with bright red bloodstains on their uniforms, the immaculately white fabric soaking it up like a sponge. The fat one—her father’s killer—raised his hands to plead with her, his strength quickly fading as his blood pooled at his knees.
Mara regarded him coolly, trying in vain to savor her victory. As much as she wanted to relish the moment, she found it impossible to feel anything at all.
The man’s bulging, corpulent face began to sag. She tried to remember what he looked like when he’d given the order to the firing squad that had shot her father—that awful dispassionate look, as if he were squashing a bug—but for all the stars of Earth, she couldn’t remember what he’d looked like then. All she saw was a terrified man who didn’t want to die.
Her finger squeezed the trigger, and a burst of gunfire exploded in the center of the man’s head.
The Imperial officer slumped to the floor. “That’s for my father, you son of a bitch,” she heard herself say. The words hung limp in the air, losing their force almost the moment they left her mouth.
The scene blurred before her, and her vision turned to darkness. *This isn’t real*, she told herself. *It’s a dream—you’re dreaming this*. She felt as if she had just watched the massacre through a stranger’s eyes. But, of course, it wasn’t a stranger; it was her. And the scenes playing out before her were more than just dreams. They were memories.
“I did it for you, Father,” she shouted into the void. “I paid him back for killing you. Is it enough?” *Will it ever be enough?*
The darkness did not grace her with an answer. She drew in a long, quivering breath and tried to focus on her father, but all she felt was an awful numbness.
“Are you happy, Father?” she asked again, her hands quivering and her eyes burning. But as much as she wanted to cry, the tears simply would not come.
“Mara?”
Her father’s voice rang like a gunshot in her ear. She couldn’t see where he was, but she could sense his presence. She headed in that direction, and the darkness gave way to a long, upward-curving corridor.
As she walked, details began to fill in. She saw throngs of people milling about the edges, with old, clunky ventilators and icons of cyborg saints posted above each lintel. The scent of burning incense filled the air, and a brilliant blue planetscape shone up through the floor windows.
*Megiddo Station,* Mara realized. *Home.*

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About Joe Vasicek:

Joe Vasicek is a Science Fiction writer who has lived in the mountains of Utah, the forests of New England, the Bedouin deserts of Jordan and the fertile vineyards of the Caucasus. When he writes, though, his mind is anywhere but this world. One day, he will look down on this planet from space. But until then, he's always writing.

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