For five years now humanity has been falling back. Although we have had limited success in ground skirmishes against the Lankies we have lost every single space battle against them. Colony world after colony world has fallen and their siege ships appear to be indestructible. Once they arrive at a planet they are able to land troops and terraform it to their needs quickly and efficiently. Despite this harsh reality, the North American Commonwealth and the Sino-Russian Alliance remain bitter enemies and they continue to fight against each other over the colony planets that do remain under human control. Even Earth itself has deteriorated as the two-front war sucks away all the resources and civil unrest has become the norm. 

Within the beleaguered armed forces Andrew Grayson has become a combat controller and he plays a key role on the tip of the spear. Although he longs to be able to leave the military and return to Earth to spend time with his girlfriend, Andrew realizes the harsh truth that there won't be an Earth to return to if he doesn't do his job. He continues to put his life on the line time and time again for a military brass that doesn't have a moral compass or even the intelligence to focus their attention on the Lankies. After being assigned to a disastrous invasion force, Andrew finds himself being sent to the ass end of the galaxy to help garrison and protect a remote moon. When access to Earth gets cut off and his military task force turns on the civilian population of the moon Andrew must decide if he is going to blindly obey orders or if he needs to become more than just a cog in the machine.

This book is a notch above the first one because it really hooks you in as Andrew's character starts to develop. Andrew has to make some tough calls as he tries to juggle protecting and supporting his Mom back on a crumbling Earth, maintaining a relationship with his remote girlfriend, and protecting humanity from annihilation. Desperate times call for desperate measures but how far is too far? Is it worth any price to guarantee the survival of the human race?

Marko Kloos offers up more solid military sci-fi with this one and then blends in some interesting character development to go along with the high paced action. As far as the series goes I went into this book unsure about the series and came out eager for the next book, Angles of Attack. For audiobook fans, Luke Daniels does another excellent job on the narration and he does well voicing the military characters. Combat stations! Combat stations! All hands to combat stations. This is not a drill.