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Command Decision

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Overview

With the Vatta's War series, award-winning author Elizabeth Moon has claimed a place alongside such preeminent writers of military science fiction as David Weber and Lois McMaster Bujold. Now Moon is back-and so is her butt-kicking, take-no-prisoners heroine, Kylara Vatta. Once the black-sheep scion of a prosperous merchant family, Kylara now leads a motley space force dedicated to the defeat of a rapacious pirate empire led by the mysterious Gammis Turek.

After orchestrating a galaxy-wide failure of the communications network owned and maintained by the powerful ISC corporation, Turek and his marauders strike swiftly and without mercy. First they shatter Vatta Transport. Then they overrun entire star systems, growing stronger and bolder. No one is safe from the pirate fleet. But while they continue to move forward with their diabolical plan, they have made two critical mistakes.

Their first mistake was killing Kylara Vatta's family.
Their second mistake was leaving her alive.
Now Kylara is going to make them pay.

But with a "fleet" consisting of only three ships-including her flagship, the Vanguard, a souped-up merchant cruiser-Kylara needs allies, and fast. Because even though she possesses the same coveted communication technology as the enemy, she has nowhere near their numbers or firepower.

Meanwhile, as Kylara's cousin Stella tries to bring together the shattered pieces of the family trading empire, new treachery is unfolding at ISC headquarters, where undercover agent Rafael Dunbarger, estranged son of the corporation's CEO, is trying to learn why the damaged network is not being repaired. What he discovers will send shock waves across the galaxy and crashing into Kylara's newly christened Space Defense Force at the worst possible moment.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Fourth in Moon's Vatta's War space-going family and military saga (after 2006's Engaging the Enemy), this jaunty far-future romp follows the scions of two powerful but threatened families: woman space warrior Kylara Vatta and undercover operator Rafe Dunbarger. While Ky, who earlier saw much of her family murdered, builds an antipirate fleet from former privateers, Rafe works to preserve his family's giant interstellar communications corporation after a hostile takeover. Aunt Grace Lane Vatta sheds her dotty old woman cover to direct security on Slotter's Key, the Vatta home base, and Cousin Stella settles in as Vatta's CEO, assisted by young Toby, a precocious techie. Though lacking the breathless hyperdrive of Moon's earlier splendid derring-do in Marque and Reprisal, the frequent FTL jumps between Ky's deep-space engagements, Rafe's reluctant boardroom battles, Grace's wily machinations and Stella's expert financial calculations keep the excitement level high. (Feb.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Elizabeth Moon

Former Marine Elizabeth Moon is the author of many novels, including Command Decision, Engaging the Enemy, Marque and Reprisal, Trading in Danger, the Nebula Award winner The Speed of Dark, and Remnant Population, a Hugo Award finalist. After earning a degree in history from Rice University, Moon went on to obtain a degree in biology from the University of Texas, Austin. She lives in Florence, Texas.

Customer Reviews

  • 3 stars out of 5Pretty good

    Posted June 13, 2008 by mbgyulay, Milwaukee, WI

    This series isn't as good as her Herris Serrano series. It's still good if you like space opera so much that it doesn't have to be high quality. I like the details as well as the action. If you want to read Elizabeth Moon at her best, read Speed of Dark.

Additional Info

Imprint

Random House

Filesize

962.54 KB

Number of Pages

400

eBook ISBN

9780345498083

Excerpt from: Command Decision by Elizabeth Moon

CHAPTER ONE
Nexus II


Rafael Dunbarger landed at Nexus Center Port as Genson Ratanvi, a staid, slightly paunchy middle-aged businessman in food service with a Cascadian identity. His tidy gray beard and gray-streaked hair, his padded cheeks and aged skin, his sober business suit with a few lines of Cascadian green through its subtle gray plaid all fit this image. Customs and Immigration passed him through, as his bioassays all matched his identity--as well they should, Rafe thought. Short-acting DNA subs programmed with his alter's bioassays might give him a temporary headache, but that was a price he could pay. He had obtained this first false ID at Cascadia more than a decade before, and he'd used it here several times, on visits his family hadn't known about.

The trip from Cascadia had been no worse than usual; he had spent the twenty-nine days chatting with other business travelers, exercising in the business-class gym, reading in the business-class lounge, avoiding the gawking tourists and the family groups as his persona required, and carefully not thinking about Ky or Stella Vatta. Ky was beyond his reach, probably dead; he could not tease Stella now, not until she reached some equilibrium with her new identity.

Instead, he toyed with ISC's problems. How had so many ansibles gone bad all at once? Surely not chance . . . who had done it? Why was repair so slow? If he himself could restore function in a few hours, why weren't ISC's repair teams making more headway? How deeply had the pirates infiltrated ISC?

Landing on Nexus II--he carefully did not let himself call it home--Rafe pushed that puzzle aside. Genson Ratanvi needed to find a way to contact Rafe's family, discreetly.

First he headed for the Ambisor, a commercial hotel frequented by business travelers where he had stayed before; his minimal luggage trailed him on a rented hoverpad. Once installed in his room, he first dealt with the hotel's surveillance system and then installed his own unique gear. The hotel's system would now inform the hotel that Genson Ratanvi came in, bathed, slept, and went out, on a reasonable but not too rigid schedule; it would believe anything he sent it, including remotely from his implant. Pseudo-calls would be noted; pseudo-messages would be sent. Then Rafe called up the business directory on the room display, marking the sorts of businesses he should, in this persona, mark, then tapping the key to collapse the rest of the directory.

What he really wanted to know, he had noted in passing: ISC headquarters still had the same public access number. Not that Genson Ratanvi had any reason to call there.

After a mediocre meal at the hotel's cafe, Rafe headed out into the city. It was autumn in this location, just after midday, local time. He drew a deep breath, anticipating and then enjoying the familiar fragrance, childhood-deep in his memory. His favorite time of year, with apples ripe on the trees and the autumn mushrooms mingling their scent with that of fallen leaves, even here in the city's commercial district. Probably every world had its characteristic scents, but he spent nearly all his time on ships and stations. He felt a strange mix of nostalgia and fear: this was home, and home could be deadly.

The Number 161 tram still ran from the spaceport hotel district out to the northern suburbs; Rafe rode it to the last stop, seeing little change from the last time he'd been here except that the long-delayed northern extension of the freight monorail was finally in place. He got off in the bustling little market, now full of schoolchildren buying treats after school, and women--mostly employees, he knew--buying fresh produce and meat for dinner.