I really wanted to like this. I liked the main storyline, and the character concepts are acceptable, but it’s hard to get by the flaws.
The diaiog at points is almost painful. I can live with the overly formal semantics, but the backstory to explain this type of dialog in the military is never established. I never severed in the armed forces and even I could tell that the author didn’t either. The main protagonist seems to have no concept of command. He waffles between bullying his crew and being completely in over his head.
None of this is helped by the voice of the narrator who has a limited range of character voices. He is fairly monotone in his delivery and does not carry any emotion into the characters.