Review - Probe by Mel Keegan

The festering colonial rebellion finally explodes into open warfare in the fourth book of the Hellgate saga. The flashpoint of Ulrand, where the inept interference of military engineers from Earth caused an alien artifact to explode, devastating almost half the planet. Festering resentment is pushed into high gear, and when the inevitable vote to succeed comes, Earth sends a fleet of ships to prevent the predictable succession of other worlds from the confederacy. An unlikely group of mercenaries comes to the planet’s defense, as well as a ghost from Neil Travers’ past. It’s all orchestrated by Harrison Shapiro in his efforts to prevent a bloodbath.

Things are heating up in the race to understand the enigma of the Zunshu as well. The human and Resalq scientists are making progress in understanding the alien technology, and are ready to probe the mysteries of Hellgate in a ship to be piloted by Michael Vidal.

Our heroes, Neil Travers and Curtis Marin, are mainly on the sidelines watching the action in this installment. They’re still recovering from the harrowing experiences of the previous installment (Cry Liberty), but they do play some active roles in this story, and it’s clear they will be front and center again for the next episode.

The blurb for “Probe” might have you expecting something a little more sedate, especially after the hair-raising escape Neil, Curtis and their team had in the previous book. However, the action is pretty non-stop in this edition, with the crew of the Wastrel bouncing between the area of Hellgate where they’re seeking the last pieces of the puzzle of how the Zunshu navigate through the gravitational eddies of Hellgate, to Ulrand for the start of open hostility between Earth and the colonies, to the frozen planet of Kjorin. This book is quite a roller-coaster ride, that gets hard to put down at points.

If you’ve gotten this far in the series, then you’ll definitely enjoy the action in this installment. “Probe” may be purchased from Smashwords or Amazon.