Fortune's Pawn by Rachel Bach
What does an adrenaline-junkie soldier do upon reaching the top of the promotion ladder, and the next promotion up is a desk job? Find a new ladder. Devi wants to join the elite King’s Guard even though she’s barely thirty, and that means finding an active-duty job. Her boyfriend finds a cursed ship looking for security. While Devi doesn’t believe in curses, she doesn’t believe in coincidence either, and this ship has been attacked more than once on every voyage.
The captain seems like a nice guy, with secrets. The captain’s young daughter is extremely strange, she clearly has secrets that Devi isn’t allowed to look at too closely. The cook is a good-looking guy, with secrets. The pilot is a bird-like alien, too snarky to keep secrets. The engineer seems like a nice woman (no secrets?) and the navigator is a peace, love, and happiness woman, at one with the universe. Her secret is that she can move things through the Force, a little. The second security guard is from the same planet as Devi, and has no secrets at all.
After the first battle, the ship stops off at the planet where the rest of the crew had shore leave.
A secret call to her former boyfriend with information about what she saw - thinks she saw? - brings information back to her that there are deep government secrets involved, and she should run, far and fast. Run? When there’s so much opportunity for mayhem, and the chance for attracting notice from the King’s Guard? What fun!
“Fortune’s Pawn” has lots of fun battle scenes, wonder armor and weapons, and a variety of enemies - both the blatant attackers and the sneaky “I thought you were on my team” turncoats. Rachel Bach’s careful plotting means that Devi doesn’t know from one chapter to the next just how far she can trust her captain, her fellow security guard, or her fellow crewmates.
It doesn’t help when she doesn’t know if an alien attack left her with hallucinations.
Devi discovered most of the crew’s secrets, and solved most of the mysteries of this strange ship which is attacked so often, and she is happy to keep working on this ship, with an eye to future promotions.
The ending has an amazing twist which leaves me really glad I found this book late enough that I don’t have to wait long to get my hands on the sequel.
The captain seems like a nice guy, with secrets. The captain’s young daughter is extremely strange, she clearly has secrets that Devi isn’t allowed to look at too closely. The cook is a good-looking guy, with secrets. The pilot is a bird-like alien, too snarky to keep secrets. The engineer seems like a nice woman (no secrets?) and the navigator is a peace, love, and happiness woman, at one with the universe. Her secret is that she can move things through the Force, a little. The second security guard is from the same planet as Devi, and has no secrets at all.
After the first battle, the ship stops off at the planet where the rest of the crew had shore leave.
A secret call to her former boyfriend with information about what she saw - thinks she saw? - brings information back to her that there are deep government secrets involved, and she should run, far and fast. Run? When there’s so much opportunity for mayhem, and the chance for attracting notice from the King’s Guard? What fun!
“Fortune’s Pawn” has lots of fun battle scenes, wonder armor and weapons, and a variety of enemies - both the blatant attackers and the sneaky “I thought you were on my team” turncoats. Rachel Bach’s careful plotting means that Devi doesn’t know from one chapter to the next just how far she can trust her captain, her fellow security guard, or her fellow crewmates.
It doesn’t help when she doesn’t know if an alien attack left her with hallucinations.
Devi discovered most of the crew’s secrets, and solved most of the mysteries of this strange ship which is attacked so often, and she is happy to keep working on this ship, with an eye to future promotions.
The ending has an amazing twist which leaves me really glad I found this book late enough that I don’t have to wait long to get my hands on the sequel.