Valor's Trial by Tanya Huff

When Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr was lifted off Crucible with her team, they had discovered an alien race that is composed of molecule-size components was somewhere out there in space and had the ability to mind-wipe those it came in contact with and even take over their minds. With its discovery, the Confederation hoped to find out more about it, but was unable to discover much.

Now recovered from the wounds she took on Crucible, Torin hooked back up with her old comrades on Ventris Station and was sent out to a new war Zone, where the Older Races were looking to make a beachhead against the Younger Races, like the Confederation, they are fighting. But when a doomsday weapon wielded by the Older Races turns Torin's position and 30 miles of the planet's surface into a shiny glass-like material, everyone in the Confederation is sure she is dead.

Everyone, that is, except the man she loves, and who loves her: salvage Captain Craig Ryder. Unable to accept what everyone else sees as the truth, except for Torin's own father, Craig sets out to find the woman he loves with some old friends along for the ride.

Meanwhile, Torin wakes to find herself in an underground prison where even the will of captured Marines seems to have broken, rendering them little better than animals. And worst of all is the man in charge of the section she landed in the section she landed in, a man whose name is Harnett and who rules this section of the prison more like a dictator than an officer. But even when Torin defeats Harnett and restores military order to the section of the prison that Harnett ruled, can Torin overcome what is sapping everyone's will to find a way out and back to safety?

Or will she be stuck for life on this hellhole, a life that can so quickly become a death? And since everyone knows that the "Others" take no prisoners, can Torin discover who has imprisoned the Confed marines, *and* the members of the old races before they succumb to whatever has sapped the will of the other marines?

It took me a short bit to get into the novel, but once I did, I really enjoyed it. Tanya Huff's writing grabs you by the throat and jerks you into the story and then you are pulled along for the ride without letup.

And it's a great story. Not great for the characters, of course, but it's rough, gritty SF with a strong military flavor. While Torin may only be a Gunnery Sergeant, she is a strong and effective one, but has definitely been having thoughts about leaving the military and settling down with Craig. While circumstances end up so that she isn't able to think about him during the story, the reverse is not also true. Craig Ryder thinks about her a lot, and his search for answers. while not quite as interesting as Torin's escape from Prison Hell Underground, it holds up its own action quite well. It just doesn't seem as interesting as Torin's escape.

This was a very good novel and while it may be the end of the series, it's a fine volume. I honestly though the previous volume, Honor's Trial was better, but this one was almost as good, and you really felt for both characters during their journey. I can't wait to see if there are more, but I feel there will be as this is billed only as the fourth volume and not the final volume in the series. Good stuff.