Gemina

Kaufman, Amie and Jay Kristoff. Gemina. Book 2 of the Illuminae Files. 2016. 659p. ISBN 978-0-553-49915-5. Available at FIC KAU on the library shelves.

Heimdall Station is in the middle of space, floating near nowhere. It does, however, provide access to a controlled jump gate which allows ships to travel tremendous distances. Civilization is but one jump away from the station, but for Hanna Donnelly, that’s not close enough. As the daughter of the station’s captain, Hanna misses the contacts and comradery that come from hanging out with other teens. Her only solace while on the station? Working out at the dojo. Her dad is big into strategy games, so she has had plenty of time to master these. In love with Jackson, a security officer on board the station, Hanna is not above scoring some dust, her drug of choice, from Niklas Malikov, a lowlife member of the notorious House of Knives, a criminal cartel. Unknown to them, their lives are about to change dramatically.

From the Kerenza system, a ship called Hypatia is on its way, with Kady Grant and several hundred colonists, who survived and escaped the BeiTech assault on their illegal settlement and the ensuing pursuit by several warships. As it neared Heimdall Station, Hypatia began transmitting news of their ordeal. Unfortunately, a BeiTech agent infiltrated deep in the station’s command structure has intercepted all of Hypatia’s messages, and contacted BeiTech for backup. A fleet of drone ships is heading straight for the station and the wormhole, to destroy Hypatia and the remaining witnesses to BeiTech’s crimes. At the same time, twenty-four Beitech agents with orders to kill everyone aboard Heimdall and destroy the station, are boarding Heimdall.

Confronted by hostile and deadly agents, alien predators (Niklas’ family has to manufacture the drug somewhere!), and a rip in the space-time continuum, Hanna and Niklas are Kady and the Kerenza survivors’ only hope. Can they work together long enough to make it off the station?