Duel in the Dark: Blood on the Stars I

Duel in the Dark: Blood on the Stars I 
by Jay Allan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

300 years after the final collapse of the Human civilization, known as the Cataclysm, the Confederation is facing their fourth war with the Union.

Captain Tyler Barron is the grandson of the great war hero of the second war, Admiral Barron. He doesn't expect to be a great hero but he does intend to fight in the looming war with the Union and maintain the honor of the Barron name.

After ten months patrolling the border between the Confederation and the Union the Confederation Ship Dauntless is sent, closer repair facilities being overloaded, to the far side of Confederation for a long overdue refit. This is a chance for the exhausted crew to get some badly needed rest and recreation.

CFS Dauntless is the only warship near the Rim, so they must cut short their refit and R & R to answer a distress call from a small but strategic base located in a system on the Rim.

With major repairs less than half completed, the facility and Dauntless engineers quickly patch up and reassemble equipment so the ship can get underway in two weeks instead of several months.

Expecting to deal with smugglers or pirates, Captain Barron and the crew of the battleship find themselves in a fight for their lives against a larger, brand new battleship.

Can they prevail? Can Tyler show that he is a Barron in more than just name? Or will they go down in defeat and death, leaving the Confederation in two front war with two enemies instead of one?

The is a tense, action-packed, space opera type of story.

I loved it. The writing is excellent. The people are real. The action is great.

Five star writing. I had to bump it down to four stars because starting with chapter 32 the start of every chapter had the ship listed as CFS Dauntless, even when all other info showed it was really AS Invictus. This threw me off at the start of chapter 32 because I didn't pay attention to the other info, just the ship name, so when I started reading my mind was on the wrong ship. There were also a few instances of wrong pronoun use, he when it should have been she and vice versa. Also some character names were wrong. All these are minor mistakes but when added together they cost a star on the rating. 

I changed it back to five stars because it is DRM-free.

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