One Good Soldier

An excellent military science fiction pick is Travis S. Taylor's ONE GOOD SOLDIER, which takes place six years after the events of THE TAU CETI AGENDA and offers a narrowed focus on a single critical day in the history of the U.S. of the Sol System, when Ross 128 secedes from the union and action must be taken to prevent an interstellar civil war. A top pick for libraries where patrons like military science fiction action.

One Good Soldier ties up the loose ends with practically all of our favorite characters surviving about ten years of war. Most questions are answered, with the possible exception of the political dynamics behind the civil war. Either because of limitations of space or disruption to the narrative flow, why so many people would go to such lengths to destroy the United States is not all that clear. Part of it may lie in the fact that the protagonist U.S. President is a Republican. Maybe the (far future) collectivist wing of the American Left decided to take what it could of the frontier states in space to create a utopia. The book is an action story where, in the end, the principles of a 600-year old constitution ultimately prevail. However, I did appreciate the rough justice in the concluding chapter where certain people get what's coming to them in a fashion appropriate to the latest Vince Flynn novel. (He writes about the world of special ops and covert actions in our current war.) I give it 5-stars because it accomplishes its intended purpose quite well. This is an action story with characters we care about and a moral center. Good vs. evil and "Duty, Honor, Country" may sound old-fashioned some time but those values are at the core of this story.

One Good Soldier (2009) is the third SF novel in the Tau Ceti Agenda series, following The Tau Ceti Agenda. In the previous volume, Nancy escaped the torture chamber in the separatist battle cruiser. She then managed to get out a transmission to DeathRay before the cruiser was destroyed. Moore got critical data on a security leak and blew a political move to impeach him. Releasing a properly doctored story, he won the election for a third term. Then his daughter told him that she wanted to be a Marine. In this novel, Nancy Marie Bloomfield is a CIA agent. Under the name of Nancy Penzington, she infiltrated the Separatist Movement and went with the separatists to Tau Ceti. Now she is stranded within the Tau Ceti system. Jack "DeathRay" Boland is a Commander in the US Navy and the commander of the air group on the USS Sienna Madira, a spacegoing supercarrier. He is a very hot pilot. Alexander Moore is the President of the United States. He is married to Sehera, daughter of Sienna Madira, the one hundred eleventh President of the United States. They have one daughter -- Deanna -- who is a student in a military academy and is becoming a hotshot simulator pilot. Clay Jackson is a former Armored Environment-suit Marine. Now he is the Secret Service bodyguard of Deanna Moore. Elle Ahmi is a terrorist and the leader of the Separatist Movement. She only appears in public wearing a red, white and blue ski mask. In this story, Nancy snapbacked through the QMT teleport to Tau Ceti with the other personnel on the battle cruiser just before it was destroyed. In the resulting confusion, she managed to escape to Ares and disappeared. During the past six years, she has built herself another cover identity. As Ensign Bella Penrose, Nancy is a pilot on the separatist flagship. She is serving on the ship as it teleports to the Ross 128 system. There it stays away from other spaceships using the system. Deanna is on the Moon again and gets to use the mecha simulator in the training center. She shoots down all her opponents, but is killed herself. Since she was supposed to cover an AEM unit, retired Marine Colonel Fink -- her instructor -- chews her out for failing to complete the mission. Alexander watches the haranguing and thoroughly approves. Moore had come to the Moon to see Deanna before she transits to Ross 128 for a simulator competition. She and Sehera haven't interacted very much with their daughter, but they will talk with her later. Now she has to catch the USS Sienna Madira for a ride to the Quantum Membrane Teleportation facility and then through the QMT to Ross 128. Meanwhile, the crew of the Sienna Madira is war gaming with other USN ships over Mars. The AEMs are trying to take a hill away from the opposing troops, but are suckered into an ambush by teleported troops from the Tyler. Then Staff Sargeant Tommy Suez performs a simulated self-destruct and wipes out all troops within 200 meters, including his own. On the Sie