Mavericks recap

An Elder energy virus disables the Flying Dutchman just as the crew learns Paradise faces a bioweapon attack. Meanwhile, Perkins's Mavericks survive the destruction of a Ruhar training cruiser, take command of its cadets, reach Camp Alpha, and recover proof that Kristang forces plan to use human Keepers as carriers for a lethal Ruhar pathogen. After the Mavericks are rescued and Paradise imposes quarantine, Bishop restores the Dutchman, refuels, and enters the system covertly. Smythe and Giraud capture both Keeper dropships, Adams destroys their mission ship, and Skippy disables the captives' kill implants before producing a cure and vaccines. The treatment data reaches Paradise and prevents the immediate catastrophe. The Dutchman heads home, while Perkins remains quarantined and proposes rebuilding X-Force as a Ruhar-aligned alien legion. Earth still faces probable Thuranin detection within sixty years, and evidence that another Elder AI destroyed a civilization leaves Skippy's own long-term safety unresolved.

Previously: Joe commands the Flying Dutchman with the indispensable assistance of Skippy, an Elder AI whose abilities humanity cannot reproduce. Adams, Smythe, Giraud, Chotek, Chang, Desai, Friedlander, and Simms are among the returning mission personnel, while the communications submind Nagatha is inactive. On Paradise, UNEF officer Emily Perkins leads a small human team working with the Ruhar. Humanity's survival and freedom remain tied to alien powers and technology it does not control.

The Flying Dutchman loses all usable power when Skippy identifies a Guardian tracer from earlier salvage as an energy virus. The contamination migrates between connected power stores and could enter human bodies, so the crew evacuates in fully drained suits. Mechanical starters and hand-cranked generators restore life support outside the ship while Skippy begins a complete purge. He also gives the crew limited ship-control capability and agrees to attempt Nagatha's restoration. Before the crisis is resolved, Joe learns that Paradise faces extinction. On Paradise, Perkins's six-person team and its young Ruhar liaison, Nert, take part in a war game. Shauna Jarrett, Jesse Coulter, and the other ground soldiers draw off a larger cadet force while Irene and Derek hide a damaged fighter underwater and ambush three aircraft. The exercise validates the humans' unconventional methods. A politically connected senior cadet challenges their conduct, but a Ruhar general rejects the complaint, records their damaged fighter as expendable, and endorses Nert's continued service with the team.

Perkins receives a formal promotion and her unit becomes the Mavericks, a test case for placing human personnel aboard Ruhar ships. After intensive preparation, the team joins a training cruiser staffed largely by cadets. They meet a Ruhar-allied Kristang population distinct from the hostile society they previously knew. Nert faces hostility from the senior cadet, but a human-assisted talent performance improves his standing among his peers. The cruise becomes dangerous when a Ruhar battle group investigates the wreckage of a civilian vessel. It returns with heavy damage after direct Bosphuraq intervention, suggesting that more advanced patron species are entering the regional fighting themselves. The training cruiser has no combat assignment for the Mavericks, although Nert reports to damage control. A Jeraptha star carrier orders every surviving Ruhar ship to attach under emergency conditions. The cruiser secures last, and the carrier jumps away immediately, leaving the cause of the urgent retreat unknown.

A Bosphuraq battlecruiser attacks the returning force, destroys the training cruiser's bridge, and kills most adult officers. Irene and Derek make an untrained jump from auxiliary control before inbound missiles arrive. Perkins reaches engineering by an exterior spacewalk, and the sole surviving Ruhar officer formally gives her command before dying. A politically connected senior cadet attempts to remove the humans and allied Kristang, but Janes stops the mutiny and supports Perkins. She puts the failed mutineers to work because the badly damaged ship has only days of reactor life. Perkins returns to the battle site, where the survivors find the aft portion of the Jeraptha carrier Deal Me In and rescue a Jeraptha crewman. The carrier's jump equipment still works, and an onboard emulator can connect it to the Ruhar cruiser's controls. After test jumps and an Elder wormhole transit, the combined wreck reaches the Camp Alpha system on its last stored charge. Its reactor then fails completely. Forced into dropships, Perkins's mixed group detects a small Kristang research force and makes a hidden landing on the planet.

At Camp Alpha, Perkins discovers that Kristang researchers used kidnapped humans in bioweapon work. Their current plan infects unsuspecting human Keepers, who can carry and spread a pathogen lethal to Ruhar. A transport left for Paradise eighteen days earlier. Remote access cannot retrieve the protected research, so Perkins attacks the base before its systems can erase the evidence. The Mavericks and their allies spoof the base sensors and destroy its main defenses. An improvised missile truck damages Perkins's dropship, but Janes and Jesse destroy the launcher. An allied fighter pilot intercepts the final missile to save Perkins and is presumed dead. The ground force reaches the research compound and Keeper enclosure. David Chica and Jesse prevent loyalists from killing a former acquaintance who wants rescue, while Janes and a Jeraptha analyst recover the memory core and decryption keys. The base activates an atomic self-destruct, but the overloaded survivors escape in a damaged dropship. They have evidence but no pathogen sample. Because they may have been exposed and cannot test themselves during the long incubation period, the entire group hides near its crippled craft and waits.

The Jeraptha merchant ship Sure Thing follows evidence of Deal Me In's survival to Camp Alpha. Its crew initially refuses to bring potentially infected humans aboard, but the former anti-Perkins cadet will not leave without the Mavericks, and the Jeraptha analyst invokes fleet authority. The survivors evacuate in isolated dropships. On Paradise, General Lynn learns that the infection plan may already be underway. With no sample, the Ruhar cannot identify carriers or quickly produce a vaccine. Authorities begin confining humans in southern Lemuria, and military planners consider eliminating the human population the only certain way to remove the threat. Aboard the still-disabled Flying Dutchman, Joe insists they must intervene once the ship can move. Friedlander's chemical fuel-cell approach lets Joe and Desai restart a Condor without giving the energy virus an active electrical target. The recovery teams retrieve the stranded crew. Joe then proposes ejecting the power-cell bank where Skippy has concentrated the contamination. The plan works, restoring the reactors and propulsion. The ship has lost reserve capacity and needs fuel, but it can finally turn toward Paradise.

Skippy and Bishop determine that the infected Keepers will descend in aeroshells hidden within an approaching meteor shower. During a risky gas-giant refueling stop, Skippy extracts data from the dead Elder AI found on Newark and concludes that an AI with a matrix like his helped move the planet and destroy its intelligent inhabitants. Fearing he could become a similar threat, Skippy asks Bishop to isolate or destroy him. Bishop refuses and argues that Skippy may be humanity's best defense against another rogue AI. A mechanical failure then cripples Samantha Reed's Condor deep in the gas giant. Bishop connects it by cable to Captain Porter's craft, and the two crews reach orbit in an improvised tow. The Dutchman proceeds with enough fuel for the mission and return. Skippy conceals its arrival at Paradise inside a moon's atmosphere, then locates and infiltrates an obsolete Kristang destroyer. Its data leads to two stealth dropships carrying the infected Keepers. With only sixteen hours before deployment, the crew chooses capture over destruction so Skippy can obtain samples and create countermeasures. Smythe prepares a covert assault on both craft.

Smythe and Giraud lead sealed boarding teams through the meteor cloud while Skippy feeds false images to the dropships' sensors. Both teams kill the Kristang pilots, stun the Keepers, and seize the craft without exposing the Dutchman. Skippy takes full control of the mission destroyer, and Adams sends it into the local star. A buoy left for the Ruhar explains that the attack was stopped and provides an initial pathogen assessment. The twenty captives learn that they were intended to infect humans and Ruhar on Paradise. They also discover that Kristang implants were set to kill them weeks after landing, and they consent to having the devices disabled. Chisolm remains loyal to the Kristang, while Green responds to proof that Earth and his family survived. Skippy identifies another looming danger: evidence from the repeatedly used Earth wormhole should reach Thuranin sensors in less than sixty years. Humanity cannot yet defend itself independently. Skippy develops a cure for infected humans and vaccines for both species. Green joins the first volunteer trial, the treatment succeeds, and the remaining captives are treated. Skippy transmits analysis and manufacturing instructions through a Ruhar relay. Paradise begins large-scale human vaccine trials and separate Ruhar testing. With the immediate outbreak prevented, the Flying Dutchman starts home.

The Flying Dutchman has captured both Keeper dropships, destroyed the Kristang mission ship, and delivered a working cure and vaccines to Paradise. The treated Keepers remain prisoners, and Paradise's humans remain quarantined while Ruhar confidence in the countermeasures develops. Bishop and the surviving Dutchman crew head toward Earth with a damaged ship, worn dropships, and enough fuel to return. Skippy is still attempting Nagatha's restoration and cautiously testing limited scientific disclosure. The evidence of a destructive Elder AI and the approaching Thuranin detection deadline remain unresolved. On Paradise, Emily Perkins and the Mavericks survive but face an uncertain future because UNEF X-Force is close to dissolution. Perkins proposes reorganizing it as a Ruhar-aligned alien legion able to perform ground-security work, gather intelligence, and support longer-term cooperation between species. General Lynn agrees to help develop the proposal, although UNEF leadership and the Ruhar administrator have not approved it. David Chica postpones a possible civilian brewery venture to remain available for the new mission. The book closes with the bioweapon catastrophe averted and Perkins pursuing a new role for the Mavericks.

The Flying Dutchman covertly stops the Paradise attack without exposing itself to the Ruhar fleet. Smythe and Giraud seize both dropships and all twenty infected Keepers. Adams sends the captured Kristang destroyer into the local star, while Skippy disables the captives' programmed kill implants, cures their infection, and develops vaccines for humans and Ruhar. Paradise receives the pathogen analysis and manufacturing instructions, begins large-scale testing, and keeps its human population under quarantine while confidence in the vaccines grows. Chisolm remains a prisoner after resisting the cure trial, while Green and the other Keepers are successfully treated. Bishop, Skippy, Adams, Chotek, Smythe, Giraud, and the rest of the Dutchman crew set course for Earth. Nagatha's restoration remains incomplete, and Skippy has only begun cautiously sharing advanced science. Perkins, the Mavericks, Nert, Janes, and the Camp Alpha survivors remain alive on Paradise. With X-Force close to dissolution, Perkins wins support from General Lynn to develop an unapproved Ruhar-aligned alien legion, and David Chica postpones civilian plans to stay available. The unresolved strategic threats are the Kristang civil war, Skippy's potential to become a rogue AI, and wormhole emissions likely to reveal humanity's activity to the Thuranin in less than sixty years.