Guo - Stars at War

Stars At War

By

Lee Guo

Text copyright 2014 Lee Guo

Smashwords Edition

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may bereproduced in any form without written permission from the author,except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles andreviews are permitted.

This is a work of fiction.The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of theauthors imagination or have been used fictitiously. Anyresemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or localesis entirely coincidental.

Content Editor: L. Elliott

For Mom

Table of contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31 - Epilogue

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~Prologue~

Star System Dalon, Core of the VironEmpire

Planet Dalon's World

H e kept falling,falling. Blackness everywhereno light, no ground, things did notexist for him to hold ontoJust nothingness. A total void, and sohe fell.

Who am I? What am I? He didn't know.He didn't even have the emotions to feel afraid, or to be curious,or to wonder. All he knew? Hed been in a falling trance for aslong as he could remember.

Time. What is that?

A body. What is that?

A light. What is that?

A small light, very miniature, shone fromfar away.

He couldn't quite tell what it might be, butit certainly looked different. At least, it wassomething.

When the light became brighter, he becamecuriouscertainly something new.

Curiosity. He could feel this emotion,again.

The light. It became larger. Like a singlestar in a black sky.

Prancort wanted to touch it, to grab hold ofit.

Prancort...yes, thats my name, as it hasalways been, and always will be.

He seemed to have hands, now. He reached forthat dot of light, but instead it reached out for him.

The point of light zoomed at him. Itenclosed him from all sides. It surrounded him. Colors emergedaround him.

Objects filled the sky. A place. A time. Areason.

Logic existed, again. Things existed andwere related to each other.

I am Prancort. I am me.Prancortde Gaullea machinea god.

He now saw it in his mindHundreds ofstarships firing laser beams at each other. Thousands of peopledied every secondand High Admiral Prancort was the mastermindbehind it all. The Supreme Commander of all he surveyed.

He was going to win. He would win. He alwayswonevery game.

Yes, the warThe battle, it all came back tohim now

Act 1

CHAPTER ONE

Flag Bridge, MobileBattle Fortress VSF Epsilon Decimus

B attleBattlehappened all around him.

I can winI can win. Prancort grippedthe railing with tight fists and he could hear his own breathingthrough his armored suit. Huff. Huff. His brain worked atmaximum speed.

Below him, hundreds of uniformed officerscarried out his orders.

The flag bridge busied itself in an unnaturalhigh as it controlled the entire human space navy in what was thelargest battle humanity ever encountered to date. The product ofhundreds of worlds and billions of human laborers fought againstthe alien armada that wanted to kill every human being in thegalaxy.

Huff.Huff Prancort's naniteenhanced brain sent out orders at lightning speed.

His eyes darted at the giant holographicdisplay in front of him. The red and green images flashed acrosshis face, constantly changing, constantly updating as the holomaptried to represent what was happening on the battlefield inthree-dimensional form.

He was a machineHe was a god.

Yet, even as his lightning fast reflexescommanded entire squadrons of starships, a thought kept repeatingthrough his mind of how he was indeed failing.

The truth isthe enemy he fought turned outto be even more vicious and cunning. The alien out there,commanding the opposing fleet, rarely made mistakes, and constantlyoverpowered Prancort on numerous occasions.

Yet, Prancort persisted. He tried his best tokill that emotionthe fear that he might lose. He must do it forhumanity. He needed to do it for himself. Becauseif he failedhere, he would never allow himself to live

Star System Orasis V

Bridge, Juggernaut VSFAsterix

Captain Donovan bit at his lip. As a forwardcommander, his duty was to hold the line, but theres only so mucheven he could do. In the end, he was just a pawn on theboard, a pawn the higher ups commanded.

"All laser batteries, fire!"The Captainstared at the holomap with blood-struck eyes.

The twenty-kilometer super-dreadnaughtAsterix readied its 400 laser batteries and fired into theleading snake warship. Massive amounts of energy ravaged the enemystarship, crisping its outer layer of armor to bits.

However, this didnt seem to matter. Thesnake warship had so much armor, it seemed undeterred as itfired back.

Damage sensors went ablaze. The bridge rockedas waves of violence slashed through it.

"Report!" said Donovan.

"I'm reading light damage to our forwardarmor! Power conduits on our forward section have been damaged by25%. Light casualties!"

Flag Bridge, Mobile Battle Fortress VSFEpsilon Decimus

I wish I could use missiles in this battle,Admiral Prancort said aloud, but he knew he couldn't. Too muchintersystem dust and small rocks existed within the asteroid field.Missiles would blow upon hitting any rock since they didn't have agravity-field powerful enough to deflect them, especially with themissile's extreme speed.

Battle space looked like a gigantic asteroidfield. Nothingbut a thick particle dense field with millions ofmile wide asteroids in every directionthe proto-stellar dust fieldof a newborn star. The snake admiral had chosen it, and HighAdmiral Prancort had been forced to follow the enemy admiral intothe stellar dust cloud with the belief human ships could outperformbecause they were smaller.

Well, the enemy cannot use their missiles,either, Vice Admiral Prion observed.

The battle in Block E-9-C was won, but theother battles in other blocks werent as victorious. Prancortalready sent an overwhelming number of ships to Block E-9-C to winthat battle, but he didn't have an overwhelming number of ships inall the other blocks.

A large part of the enemy's success could beattributed to the power of the enemy juggernauts. They wereunfathomably well armored and could take on a lot of damage,especially from the front. He learned several things during thebattle of block E-9-C. A snake juggernaut couldnt be destroyedfrom the front, unless overwhelmed by firepower from a humanjuggernaut and only if the snake were already damaged. The onlycost-effective way to destroy it was from the flanks where thearmor seemed weaker. Also, because of the way snake starships weredesigned, where the aft and side armors were especially weak, asingle Viron element could turn the tide of the particular battleif properly positioned. In the case of Block E-9-C, it was a singleViron light-cruiser.

This directly related to his tacticalsuccesses. Certainly, surrounds and bear claw tactics worked whenthey were done fast enough by small elements like his destroyersand light-cruisers. Even a single light-cruiser positioned in therear or flank could give the enemy a dilemma it couldn't solvewithout repositioning its own units, thus wasting valuable time andexposing even more side or aft armor.