Victory doesn't mean peace, and after coming home a hero, Black Jack Geary has just enough time to get married to Captain Tanya Desjani before being promoted to Admiral and handed the fleet again, with a new mission to cross Syndicate space, make contact with the Engima race from the last book, and establish peaceful relations, or at least figure what the hell is going on.

The fleet has old problems with morale and new problems with reliability. Because of the expected heavy losses from the war, and Geary's miraculous journey home, most of the ships are beyond their "use-by" date and experiencing systematic failures, in the same way that a T-34 gearbox could be expected to drive from Moscow to Berlin and not one kilometer more.

But the bigger problem are the Enigmas, a species paranoid beyond belief. Their ships and installations self destruct before human ships can get close. The communicate via digital avatars of humans. And they say nothing except "leave or die". The Enigma are a frustrating mystery, but beyond their territory are yet more hostile aliens.

This is more classic space opera, a journey of exploration than a journey of kicking ass (though plenty of ass is kicked), and if you're this far in, you probably know what you like a these books. That said, I do wish the relationship between Geary and Desjani had gone a little differently. Both decide that the honor and efficiency of the fleet require that they remain nothing more than Admiral and Captain, but I would have liked to see one date night.