Solid “Space Marines” space opera. I liked the writing. Believable caracters. Nice idea to have a “warrior race” in the originally peaceful Confederation, and have that race be “humans” (and 2–3 other). Otoh, military fiction isn’t my first choice. I found this in a public bookcase, and for that price its good. 🤷🏼‍♂️

I may be biased a bit with the “good writing” bit, as i read this immediately after “[b:Mutineer|129582|Mutineer (Kris Longknife, #1)|Mike Shepherd|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388309467l/129582.SY75.jpg|124804]”, where the writing was … solid. This here is what it is and it’s not pretending to be more. That’s good. So, you read it, you’re entertained while you do, and when you’re through the book you’re done.

There’s too much lampshade hanging and cliches.
The di’Taykans are “Elves in Space™”. The Mictok are “spiders” (“Get it off me!”).
Soldiers are the same everywhere; of course they hang out at bars and drink beer.
Any double entendre has an “always horny” di’Taykan snicker.

There’s a bit of leaning on the fourth wall which i sort-of liked. The author’s letting the readers know she doesn’t like the war media tropes of killing off those showing off family fotos or talking about how soon they’ll be out of the service.

Moral: Don’t explain “AOAB” to an officer, at least not to a ★★ general you’ve called lazy moments before.

eta:
And for those that didn’t like how the Big Yellow story ended: that’s a cliff hanger.