Sort of.
It definitely has those elements. The title refers to "the rush", an adrenaline-surge state involuntarily imposed on vat-grown human supersoldiers. One such retired supersoldier Hal is on the four-person crew, along with Ty (his also-retired, fully human previous commanding officer), Beryl (human medic, the kind who can fix anything as long as it is plot-relevant and dramatic), and Vivi (hapless tech expert who gets rescued in the first scene and then "trains" with the crew, eventually becoming equivalent to the retired military fighters???).
I found many elements of this book that took me out of enjoying it as the romping adventure it is attempting to be. My biggest peeve is that it reads as if the author has imagined an action movie and is describing what happens onscreen. The language of the book is simple and it is constantly telling me what characters feel and think, rather than using the medium of a text-based story conveyance to describe how people feel and think. Lesser peeves fall into the category "this reads like fanfiction" --- the book audience doesn't really get to know the characters for long enough to make the big emotional swings have any weight, but the characters are endlessly discussing their feelings with each other, accepting each other and forgiving each other, and resolving to do their best for each other and for Teamwork/the Crew/our Found Family (TM). If this were a movie, the stakes would feel deeper, since the audience would have spent more time staring at each of these characters as they emote; on the page, the characters are not described enough to have this resonance.
The female love interest Vivi is repeatedly described swirling her hair up into a "simple ponytail", putting on/off tiny sleep shorts and an oversized sleep shirt, and ... having blonde hair. I don't know what her face looks like, but I'm left picturing the Bland Female Protagonist Face of Elsa et al.
Many worldbuilding-breaking "twists" occur as convenient for the emotional plot and then are disregarded for the rest of the plot where they absolutely would have ramifications. There are vat-grown supersoldiers in order to fuel a military that has driven off murderous AIs; when one such AI is not dead, and instead infects the ship, it is immediately won over by the clear love and teamwork of the 4 person crew and becomes a 100% benevolent deus ex machina. The engines can go to 110% when the AI needs to help them escape, but the rest of the time not, and no one mentions it again. The AI casually reveals it knows how to regrow nerves (because it is a biology-studying AI), but only after a protagonist has a spinal cord injury and has struggled with PT recovery for a whole 1 day. No one on the crew ever reveals to the increasingly-large circle of rebels/allies that their ship harbors an alien AI with superpowers, even though this is obviously the biggest news of their lives and probably of their civilization. Instead they focus on when the romantic interests will punch someone on each other's behalf (egalitarianly! this happens both gender directions) and mention the big word "love".
This unexamined-ness permeates the entire book. The book opens with a scene of naive Vivi being drugged and nearly-kidnapped in a space bar. Protagonist captain and supersoldier see this, counter-kidnap her, and bring her on their ship, then loot through her pack to find where she was staying, then go to there and collect her stuff, then their ship leaves the station with her and all her stuff aboard. I thought this was a fascinating "fight fire with fire" situation (fight kidnapping with kidnapping? the only way to stop bad kidnappers is to be good kidnappers with bigger biceps?) but Vivi accepts her counter-kidnapping with grace and immediately sets about falling in love with Hal (supersoldier).
Emotional beats became flat for me after the first two "certain death" situations got twists, and there was no fallout once everyone in the Crew was safe. Space battle, one smuggler ship (sorry, scavenger) against several top-of-the-line military craft? Certain death? Oh yeah, their AI will be super clever and get them out of it, via the never-before-anticipated trick of flying between the two ships so their munitions target each other. Ugh.
This book was one brief flight's worth of airport waiting, flying, and airport waiting (round 2). I wouldn't recommend it, but it was more interesting than reading extensive security alert posters and endless ads for AI startups.
This post's theme word is exute (v), "to strip or deprive of something." The novel was a rollicking adventure, exuted of all stakes, emotional weight, and logical consistency.
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