USS Thunderhead (USS Hamilton)

Captain Galvin Quintos has lost everything that matters. His beloved cabin at Coyote Crossing Ranch — the Colorado sanctuary he'd built for the life he thought he'd have — is gone. His relationship with Commander Gail Pristy, the woman who'd stood beside him through a decade of impossible battles, has disintegrated in silence. Three months without a word. No explanation. No goodbye.

Now the U.S. Space Navy is dragging him back for one more deployment — commanding USS Thunderhead, the most powerful warship ever constructed. Ten miles of cutting-edge destruction. Sixty-five hundred crew. And a mission that turns out to be a glorified babysitting job: shepherding seven green academy ensigns through a training cruise while an admiral he doesn't trust watches from the back of his bridge.

Then people start dying.

Before Thunderhead leaves dock, someone tries to kill him. A militant cult, strangely familiar, has woven itself into the ship's infrastructure, corrupted the AI, and infiltrated the chain of command. And the admiral running the operation... he seems to be romancing Pristy.

And all that is just the appetizer for a main course of impossible infiltration by hostiles and space battles that will be impossible to survive.