After successfully establishing a connection to the Hypernet gate at Midway, Admiral Jack Geary is on his continuing mission to Dancer space, in order to establish a diplomatic presence there, leading an aggregate fleet of not only Alliance ships, but also some additional ships accompanying his forces provided by Midway. Of course, he's still dealing with the diplomatic problems of leading a force composed of different governments that don't trust each other or necessarily share the same goals... oh, and even his own Alliance has unidentified dissentive factions within it whose goals appear to be to sabotage this very expedition. Luckily, as a diplomatic mission, he's not even really in charge, but is only in command of actions that are required for the safety of the fleet, so he's got that going for him.
On their way, the fleet discovers the ruins of the Passguard, the flagship of the Rift Federation's fleet, which had left the Federation ships behind in a unwise attempt to travel to Dancer space on their own, in the hopes of establishing a diplomatic presence before the Alliance could. The Passguard was the only surviving ship - and that was just barely - limping along on fading fuel and life support, even having to manually disengage from hyperspace, as the navigation systems were damaged beyond repair. Geary commands a desperate rescue mission to save any survivors, but this introduces yet more risk... is this some sort of "ghost ship" ploy by the Enigmas to lure them in and take them out? If so, caution must be taken to avoid setting off any rigged explosives. If not, any hesitation could be measured in lives lost. Even if it wasn't a trap, the Rift Federation didn't join their fleet when they were just starting out and had functional ships; could any survivors from the Passguard be trusted?
Once in Dancer space, while attempting to establish meaningful communications with the Dancer (which is a bit of a tricky situation, requiring more math and artistic expression than one might expect), Admiral Geary and his fleet encounter the Taons, yet another unknown alien race, and have to decide between taking the chance to establish first contact with a new civilization or focusing the entire fleet on the communication with the Dancers. They're not mutually exclusive, of course, but splitting the fleet could leave both groups of ships at greater risk... and that's before considering the unidentified interlopers within the fleet.
Upon the discovery of a new lead as to the operations of the saboteurs, Admiral Geary and a few close and trusted personnel hatch a plan to catch the leaders of the undermining force in the act, but it would work best if Admiral Geary were not around, so perhaps reaching out to the new alien civilization is a job for Admiral Geary, personally. The Taons certainly seem anxious for the Federation to come and visit, even suggesting that Geary bring all of his ships. Geary will have to talk them down into a smaller force, but the Taons seem unnervingly excited to party and have fun with the Alliance Fleet.
With his promotion to Admiral and his expanded scope of command, Geary is having to learn to delegate and to trust others to do their part without his micromanaging. I found it interesting to watch Geary as he attempts to accept this and change throughout the series so far to fill his larger role. I was a little disappointed that, as the story follows Admiral Geary's point of view, his moving away from direct interaction with the smallest details means that the reader also becomes a bit more removed from certain events, learning what happened as Geary does, when someone is reporting the event to him. This was most pronounced in the split of the forces near the end of the book, when Admiral Geary leads a small fleet of ships into Taon space, leaving the rest of the fleet behind to deal with the leaders of the insurgence when they initiated their plan. Admiral Geary would have no knowledge of what was going on there until his return... and neither would we.
In the course of Resolute, the diplomatic fleet learns more than they could have ever dreamed of alien civilizations, along with a possible direction to lead their colonization efforts, which could point them back to an age-old mystery from Old Earth...
I enjoyed Resolute and look forward to whatever Jack Campbell has in store for the next books. With the events and discoveries in this book, he certainly has options to explore. Highly recommended.
