The war is over but forging a peace is not going to be easy because the hidden actors in the war haven't stopped their actions.

Izzy Umboto didn't muster out. Instead, she was given command of the Patton - a ship barely getting by and in need of a multitude of repairs and upgrades. Lieutenant Terrance "Trouble" Tordon didn't muster out either. He's a Marine with a mission and no idea of any other kind of life.

When the Patton is approached by a businessman to investigate on frontier planet Hurtford Corner, they find links to a new drug business that needs workers and is willing to kidnap people to get them. Ruth Edris-Morton and Trouble are both captured by the kidnappers, and it is up to Izzy and Trouble's fellow Marines to rescue them which they do.

Izzy is troubled to learn that one of the pirates she blew out of space was also a slaver heading to a secret planet controlled by a secretive organization who is boosting corporate profits by growing, processing, and distributing a new drug - one which happened to kill Izzy's niece. She is haunted by the idea that she killed innocent hostages along with the pirates.

Plans to check out that planet go awry when Tordon's scouting mission is discovered and Tordon and his crew are added to the forced labor pool. Things get even more dire when he learns that Ruth and several others from Hurtford Corner were also taken there when the villains fled that planet after being discovered.

Now, it is up to Izzy and her crew, aided by Wardhaven, to get to that planet, find Trouble, and stop the illicit drug operation.

I really enjoyed this fast-paced space opera. I liked that some of the characters from the first book (The First Casualty) have larger roles in this one while others have supporting roles. The worldbuilding is intriguing and the characters are interesting people. ( )

Enjoyable story but I am wondering if Mike Shepherd and Mike Moscoe reused the outline for a Kris Longknife book. VERY similar. I was a bit disappointed.

  This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.wordpress.leafmarks.tumblr.com by express permission of this reviewer.   Title: The Price of Peace Series: Jump Universe Author: Mike Moscoe Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 329     Synopsis: The group is hired by Westhaven [?] to hunt down some pirates and in the process come across a new group of corporate flunkies who are pushing a new drug to fund their rogue ways.   My Thoughts: This was almost exactly like one of the Kris Longknife books where one of the little adventures is about rescuing some people from slave labor of drug harvesting. This was the exact clone of that story [or to be correct, the KL book was a copy of this], and to be honest, I liked this one better.   Trouble, and us, are introduced to his wife-to-be, and that was cool. I really enjoyed following Trouble as he was kidnapped and then rescued.   Nothing stood out about this story at all, much like the previous book and all of the Kris Longknife books. A good solid SFAdventure story that while not blowing my socks off certainly didn't let me down.   One thing I noted, some editions say "Society of Humanity" and others "A Jump Universe Novel".  I hate it when things like a series name change happens for unfathomable reasons. It strikes me as messy and amateur'ish [not on Moscoe's part, buty by the publishers,  Ace/Penguin] " ( )