A Pale Light In The Black (by KB Wagers) Reread - Chapters 37-39 (Really Chapters 31-32)

Welcome back to my reread of K.B. Wagers' "A Pale Light in the Black!"  You can find the other posts in this reread here.  For those somehow seeing this post first instead of the others, A Pale Light in the Black is a space opera featuring a SF space version of the Coast Guard in an optimistic future universe.

We're up to what is essentially the final arc of this novel (kinda), with the event we've all been waiting for coming up: The Boarding Games!  Well we're not quite there yet, but this week we get to see the final preparations and the team's arrival, as Max finally figures out her love life - or well, whatever we're calling what she has with Nika, Jenks discovers a new way to create "cover", and everyone has some family complications.....




Letters (Max to Nika/Nika to Max):  Max writes to Nika bout the questions she has about Gerard and her great grandfather's journal and asks how Nika is doing.  Nika notes that he's doing okay, with the ankle problems being a bigger issue than not having an arm, and how weird it is that it was HE who got injured when he spent all his time worrying about Jenks.

Chapter 38 (31): T-Minus Ten Weeks Until the Boarding Games:

Quick Summary:  The team conducts one more training exercise - this time with guns - and Jenks has a problem: the scenario doesn't give her any cover!  No problem, she "kills" a guard and takes the KIA NeoG officer as a human shield, allowing Max the time she needs to pick off all the "enemy" combatants in crazy time.

Having managed that, Max and Jenks talk about their respective love lives, and about Max's shit childhood and why Max doesn't drink.   Jenks makes Max a promise: if Max talks to Nika, Jenks will talk to Luis.  So Max places a call to Nika, and confesses that she likes Nika's brain.  This somehow is utterly adorable and the two agree to try to make the relationship work....

Thoughts:  Oh my god, Max is so adorable and relatable in this moment, and I love her.  Max's own insecurities have always rang out as one of the easiest things for me - an introvert who doesn't do well with relationships - to empathize with, and her talk here with Nika is so damn cute and sounds like how a talk with me on one end would go - fortunately for her, Nika is a perfect match seemingly for her and is just as charmed by the awkwardness.

Oh and backing up to the practice session, it's interesting to note that in the only time in this whole book we see Max with a gun, she's a crack shot apparently, taking down an entire NeoG team in only a few seconds (with Jenks providing the momentary cover).  It's really a shame that this is literally the last time we'll see a boarding mission in this entire book - we don't get to see the actual event in the Boarding Games to come, which is sad because it's fascinating.  Ah well.

Chapter 39 (32): T-Minus One Week Until the Boarding Games:

Quick Summary:  Zuma's Ghost arrives at the site of the Boarding Games on Earth and the crew spreads out to meet their families.  Rosa is the first to be thrown for a loop when her youngest daughter Gloria runs past her to go to Ma - and Rosa has to assure the girl that Rosa isn't upset that Gloria doesn't want to share her faith as long as she follows the big rule: "Live your truth....whatever it is."

The team is set up in two apartment complexes - Jenks/Max/Tamago/Sapphi in one, Rosa's family and Ma in the other.  Max is pleasantly surprised by an appearance from Nika, who takes her out to lunch, but unfortunately in the process they run into Scott Carmichael, Max's brother......

Thoughts:  Ooh, cliffhanger ending.  Thought about making this a three chapter reread to avoid it but nah, let's leave things hanging.  Anyhow, Rosa tells us one of the major themes of this book and the setting here: "Live your (own) truth, whatever it is" - which is an idea that obviously doesn't have uch traffic in our own real world: people don't let others, especially kids, believe what they want without comment.  But Rosa's two damn good to do anything otherwise: although her wife is a bit harsh with her rule about cookies in pillowcases.

Meanwhile Max and Nika's relationship is so open even that nosy Tamago knows how to mess with Max about it lol.  Seriously, we need a Tamago/Sapphi viewpoint in the next book.  But of course they run into Max's brother to ruin it.

Tangent:  Nika's faith has previously been described as "New Tech", but I wonder if his family was at once Jewish (or what's become of Judaism) - Jenks calls his grandma "Babulya" which is Russian but close to the Yiddish word for grandma, and Nika loves the knishes that his grandmother once made - and Knishes are totally Jewish food.  This intrigues me and I'd love to know what's become of my people/religion in this future.....okay tangent over.

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Next Time: The Boarding Games intro officially commences, and the team discovers the Navy team's Ace in the hole! Also Max and Jenks enter a bar and nothing happens!  Seriously, I'm sure nothing happens....right?