Well, Captain Zeke Darius has his hands full and he’s got a serious problem brewing. He’s now the Captain of this huge alien ship, the *Juggernaut*, but he has no where the right number of crew to fully man the ship. It would take at least a 1,000 people to just run the thing even though most of it is fully automated. And now he faces an unknown number of Ashi Imperium ships. They are coming to take his ship if they can, but if not, they will destroy it and all the people aboard. The Imperium has not been defeated in battle for a thousand years and they will not be defeated now.
Emperor Vang has longed for battle to prove his skills as a warrior. He has fought or at least directed some minor uprisings within the Imperium, but nothing that has really challenged him physically. Now he believes he has the opportunity to face an enemy and personally destroy him. He doesn’t know exactly who this new enemy is, but he thinks it might be the powerful Arodoni, but they haven’t been seen in thousands of years. He knows the *Juggernaut* is an Arodoni starship so he’s just assumed that they are manning the ship after all these years. Right now he believes he has them cornered above the planet Casasil. This is an Imperium planet that was conquered a long time ago because the inhabitants don’t know how to fight. They can’t even protect themselves, but now they have allowed some invaders to occupy their planet so they must pay the price. Emperor Vang, himself, is going to the planet to destroy the invaders and teach the Casians a lesson.
Captain Darius has sent the Marine contingent down to the planet to help the indigenous population to start preparing their defenses. Again, they are not fighters and can’t even physically hold weapons. Still, they do have a sophisticated technology level and they can be taught other things. But right now, Master Sergeant Remmy Steel is leading a small contingent of Marines and they observe the landing of several Ashi landers, one of which appears to have the Emperor debarking and preparing to join the fight. MSgt Steel doesn’t really care who he is as long as he and his fellow Marines kill them all!
The Ashi are huge aliens when compared to humans. The Ashi warrior stands at least thirteen feet tall and probably weights almost five hundred pounds. They wore very little armor, but they carried huge laser rifles. Remmy felt that their laser rifles would do little to these giant ogres but they could probably hurt them with one or two shots from their projectile weapons. So, the Ashi warriors started towards the capital city of Casasil and MSgt Steel had placed his platoon directly in their path, except he was going to place tactically sound ambush sites and see what happens.
Turns out, the Marines can bring down the Ashi, but they have found out their weak point is in the mid-section. It seems as though the Ashi warrior is mostly muscle with very few pain receptors in their body. They can take a lot of damage and keep fighting. If you hit them in the mid-section, that’s when they begin losing their insides and become combat effective. Steel also knows they cannot move that much weight very quickly. A normal human can easily out run an Ashi, but he’s guys and gals aren’t normal. They are in excellent physical shape so outrunning the Ashi warriors following them isn’t a problem. That can get them a chance to set an ambush, move and set anther one very quickly.
Meanwhile aboard the *Juggernaut*, Captain Darius is trying to decimate the large Ashi fleet. He has found out that his weapons are amazing in both power and range. They easily outrange the Ashi battleships and have enough power to kill a ship with one shot. In fact, at the beginning he limits his shots to only ten percent power and still completely destroys the targeted ship. But, he doesn’t realize that some of this fighting is only a ploy for something else the Ashi have going. Two hundred Ashi warriors throw themselves into space with minimal spacesuit air as they soar toward the *Juggernaut*. They have no means of re-directing their launch so a large number of them completely miss even this huge ship. They are lost forever to deep space or will eventually fall to the planet. Yet, five of the Ashi warriors arrive at the ship and land with a powerful magnet. That keeps them on the hull until they can make their way to an open hanger deck.
Here’s where Captain Darius has realized that he has made a grave tactical mistake. He didn’t consider the Ashi bold enough to actually try and board his ship. He has no Marines aboard that would normally be available to conduct anti-boarding operations, so he has to rely on his existing crew. That job will fall into the hands of his XO, Commander Lee. She has very few crewmen and most haven’t fired any kind of weapon since basic training. Additionally, the *Juggernaut* is so huge, the alien boarder could be any where. How can she possibly find them and how are they supposed to defeat huge warrior aliens that are used to killing others? Some days you just don’t get paid enough!
So, this story tells about the fighting of the ship and within the ship as well as covering actions on the ground. Most of the action is pretty intense, but the Ashi don’t seem to know much about tactics and their Emperor is even less capable at fighting than you would have figured. Because of their size, they seemed to believe that running toward an enemy, firing their laser rifles and then physically beating their enemy down was the only way to win a battle. They are going to be learning some hard lessons from the Marines.
Book 4, “Retribution”, is now available on Amazon. I’m adding it to my reading list.