Kris Longknife has her first independent command. She's been sent to command Naval District 41 orbiting the planet Chance. When she arrives along with Penny, her bodyguard Jack, her maid Abby, and a Naval Chief named Beni, she finds the place empty. She learns that Lieutenant in charge had put in his tweny years and retired - as a lieutenant.

She visits the planet to see what is going on and soon learns that the planet is filled with rugged individualists who don't see the need to have Wardhaven's protection and certainly don't want a Longknife there. A number of the older citizens had served with one or the other of Kris's great-grandfathers and knew that Longknifes were trouble magnets.

But Kris has another issue besides her unstaffed and mothballed station. Her computer Nelly wants to go exploring using some of the maps left by the ancient races that have long disappeared. She sends Penny and Abby off to rent a ship since the only one at the station was state of the art when her Great-Grandpa King Ray took it into battle many, many years ago and is now suitable mainly as a museum.

Their explorations lead to the discovery of a couple of planets with remnants of those long-gone aliens. The first is in poor condition, but the second looks like someone could move in if they could defeat the automated defenses. Determined to bring the news of her discover back to Wardhaven, Kris returns to Naval District 41 to find that four Peterwald ships have come through the jump commanded by Kris's old rival Hank Peterwald. Their goal is to conquer Chance and add it to the Peterwald empire.

Neither Kris nor the citizens of Chance are in favor of this, but both are radically outgunned. Luckily, the brains are on Kris's side. I enjoyed seeing all the different plans that were developed to defeat the Peterwald fleet, hopefully, without bloodshed or lives lost.

This was another great episode in an engaging Space Opera series. I liked seeing how Kris is growing in responsibilities and getting to know herself and her companions. ( )

Rich princess and navy lieutenant (same person) discovers alien worlds then has to defend a planet from being taken over by her foes.

This one is Last Chance - from Kris et al's arrival in the empty station, through her making allies (as usual), some very _interesting_ finds, Hank's visit, and the final battle. A very unexpected ending - he was supposed to be around much longer. And boy is this going to make changes - both in the Longknife-Peterwald feud and in the galaxy at large, at least once they start getting answers instead of just questions. And they finally figured out one bit about Abby... I had _not_ read this one before, though I've read two books later in the series. I guess you can skip around a bit...though the arc does build (especially in Kris building her team). ( )

A thoroughly enjoyable romp through a military scifi book.

However, just like the previous books, the beginning made me go confirm that I was indeed reading the next book in the series. ( )

Review 28 November 2015: whew, i had to reread the entire series (because i had forgotten just about everything) before i could read this one and the following ones.

heh heh reading them all again i notice that Kris is always getting into messes and never seems to have any down time...which i find kinda unrealistic that she and her crew would still function as well as they do with so few breaks from combat/assassination attempts.

also just noticed that abby was black. why i never pictured her as black before but now that she is it makes me mad. esp when he is so obvious when he puts other non white USA cultures in the book. like he really tries to include them and respect their cultures and only show the positive sides, yet he still does stereotypes. some of the stereotypes are positive and some are negative but stereotypes all the same. apparently we don't mix that much even with over 600 planets. (yeah, um ok. i can sorta see that since humans do tend to gather in groups were we all look the same and kinda act the same and like the same stuff.)

the stereotypes i noticed are the black gals are the ones from the bad part of town and speak the most slang, the muslims that help her out are taxi drivers and restaurant owners, the russias /germanic folks(greenfields)are prejudice and act like nazis or communists. so far he hasn't done the negative stereotypes with the oriental, native american, or the hispanic folks...at least not yet. or i didn't catch it since i am not that familiar with their cultures.

and reading them all in a row you can see the formula... it's a formula i like but his books are becoming a tad predictable. basically whenever Kris has some down time and things are a lil peaceful in about a minuter shit is gonna hit the fan. it will be a David vs Goliath space battle or it will be a hidden political/corporate agenda guerrilla warfare type fight. Kris will have to make really tough decisions that will get her in hot water and folks killed but is the right thing to do. civilians and close friends from her crew will die and get injured but Kris will defeat the evildoers and reveal the evil politicians/corporations. there will be lots of planning sessions. there will be lots of smart alckey remarks. nelly will do some magic. kris will be blamed for something or another. kris will have girly moments where she flirts with guys, dreams about jck, and wishes she was curvier.

seriously it's a formula but i like this formula. so i am still reading and looking forward to more. although the formula has caused me to look ahead in the books. he does have a few surprises. like some surprising deaths and some surprising tech and some surprising alien stuff. bad ass females in scifi military with humor and alil but of romance. a formula i love. ( )