In this sequel to Mechanical Failure , Captain Rogers, despite his best attempts to do otherwise, has become the acting admiral of the 331st Meridan fleet. His first task: worrying. A lot. The rival Thelicosan fleet, under the influence of bad intelligence, a forbidden romance, and a communication officer with an eardrum injury, is about to break a two-hundred-year-old nonaggression pact. They have offered a vague, easily misinterpreted message: “We’re invading.” Rogers isn’t sure, but he thinks that’s probably bad. War is hell, especially when you’ve forgotten how to fight one. "Because it’s nice to be reminded that sci-fi can be super silly and super smart about it, and because sarcastic homicidal robots rule." -- The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2016 ― B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog Joe Zieja is an author with a long history of doing things that have almost nothing to do with writing at all. A graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, Joe dedicated over a decade of his life to wearing The Uniform, marching around in circles and shouting commands at people while in turn having commands shouted at him. It was both a great deal of fun and a great nuisance, and he wouldn’t have had it any other way. Joe’s also a commercial voiceover artist and a composer of music for video games and commercials. He’s probably interrupted your Spotify playlist at least once to encourage you to click on the banner below and isn’t the least bit upset that you ignored him. Communication Failure We’re Invading Alandra Keffoule’s heel whistled through the air before cracking into the side of the wooden training dummy, sending splinters raining to the floor all around her. The sound was satisfying, calming, soothing. With everything going on at that moment, she could have used any small measure of peace, or at least a couple of differential equations to solve. That always put her mind at ease. It was no use, though. Not this time. Alandra was far too anxious. She’d read the intelligence reports so many times she could see the words floating around in her mind’s eye like pieces of a great puzzle. Even the tiniest recollection of what they contained brought a tingle of excitement with it for more than one reason. The ratio. The ratio. The training room, empty except for her and a couple of disfigured training dummies, seemed to pulsate with excitement, mirroring the tightly bottled emotions she kept inside. This was one of seven hand-to-hand combat training rooms available on the Thelicosan ship Limiter, but she knew almost all of them were unoccupied. In the Thelicosan heyday, these rooms would have been filled with sweat-drenched Thelicosan warriors, frantically shaving away the dummies with kicks and punches as they rhythmically recited multiplication tables. It wasn’t so much an important part of their training regimen as it was the only way the mess halls got their toothpicks. The Thelicosan Council had some pretty unique restrictions on what it would send to deployed troops. Now, however, the training rooms were about as empty as she had felt ever since she’d assumed command of the Colliders, the Thelicosan border fleet. But all that was going to change soon. The ratio. Crack. Another fresh batch of toothpicks scattered to the floor, courtesy of Alandra’s famous spinning back kick. A tendril of pain worked its way up the hamstring and across the small of her back, and she grimaced. Speaking of heydays, Alandra often felt like she was long past hers. If it hadn’t been for that battle injury, she’d still be in the F Sequence. They’d still call her the Tangential Tornado. She’d still be worth something. Alandra shook the thoughts away, memories of them sewing the big zero on her uniform shattering like a wooden training dummy turning into toothpicks. Those days were behind her; Grand Marshal Alandra Keffoule was above brooding over the past like a child. Now was the time to focus on the future. The intelligence reports came to her mind again, the detailed descriptions of the Meridan dilemma playing out like a theatrical experience. You could learn a lot about someone from intelligence reports; she’d spent almost all of her special operations career perusing dossiers chock-full of intelligence in order to get to know a target. But she’d never faced a target like this. One point six one, she thought. It’s impossible. So wrapped up in her reverie was she that she barely noticed Secretary Vilia Quinn storming into the room and storming over to her. Quinn’s version of storming was walking slightly more quickly than normal, but Alandra knew the signs that the bureaucrat was upset. Quinn was unlike Alandra in almost every way; her skin pale where Alandra’s was dark, her features hard and angular where Alandra’s were soft, her wits slow where Alandra’s were quick and deadly. And unlike electrostatic physics, in this case opposites did not attract. “I finally found you,” Quinn said, even her voice