This is the third, and possibly final book, in the "Chilling Effect"
series.

At the end of the previous book, following the action on Garilia, Eva
and crew of La Sirena Negra are invited by her sister Mari to a "Forge"
base. The Forge is a a "good-guy" organization, mainly opposing the
Evull "Fridge". While there, Mari goes through an experimenal gate and
gets into a probably fatal situation. At the same time, a Fridge force
attacks and seemingly hostile aliens forces are coming through the
gate. Eva managed to shut down the gate and rescue her sister and all.
This all includes a battle between two giant robots, one that helped
Eva accomplish the mission.

The crew is attempting R&R on a luxury planet, when a bunch of
monoliths show up beside all the gates in the galaxy. Broadcasting the ever-favorite "surrender or be destroyed" message. The monoliths appear
to be Proarkhe tech, an ancient precurser race that seemingly
disappeared leaving advanced

Eva gets a direct mental message along the lines of, "if you want to
stop that, come to this uncharted destination". Hey, it's the "good
robot" from last book. She says she's Proarkhe. They haven't
disappeared, they've just been in a centuries-long war with the
Artificers. They are the ones behind the monoliths.

There are three devices Eva needs to locate and secure. Here are the
keys! When all three are found, somehow they will work together to
defeat the enemy. They really don't remember anymore how, but surely
Eva will figure that out. One of the devices is right here. It turns
out to be a giant Mecha. Fun fun.

So it's up to Eva to locate the Mechas, figure out the secret, save the
day. All while dodging her old mercenary boss Tito and crew, who are
working for the Artificers. The rat.

As is usual with these, Eva believes in the "Do Don't Think" method of
tackling problems, leading to a variety of adventures as they try to
find the Mechas, one of them twice as Eva manages to lose one. One
thing I kind of liked was that although Eva finds the Mechas and was
the original pilot, other crew members and associates turn out to be
better at piloting, so she lets them.

The book is, like the others, is fast-paced and action-packed. Eva and
family use a lot of Spanish slang at times, which I tended to find
annoying unless I looked up the phrases.


Brian

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