Blue sun armada a milita.., p.1
Blue Sun Armada: A Military Scifi Epic, page 1
Copyright © 2021 by Scott Moon
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Blue Sun Armada
Scott Moon
Contents
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Book Order
Book Description
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
Chapter 32
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Book Order
THEY CAME FOR BLOOD
Invasion Day
Resistance Day
Victory Day
Departure Day
A MECH WARRIOR’S TALE
(SHORTYVERSE)
Shorty
Kill Me Now
Ground Pounder
Shorty and the Brits
Fight for Doomsday (A Novel)… coming soon.
CHRONICLES OF KIN ROLAND
Enemy of Man
Son of Orlan
Weapons of Earth
DARKLANDING
Assignment Darklanding
Ike Shot the Sheriff
Outlaws
Runaway
An Unglok Murder
SAGCON
Race to the Finish
Boom Town
A Warrior's Home
Hunter
Diver Down
Empire
FALL OF PROMISEDALE
Death by Werewolf
GRENDEL UPRISING
Proof of Death
Blood Royal
Grendel
SMC MARAUDERS
Bayonet Dawn
Burning Sun
The Forever Siren
SON OF A DRAGONSLAYER
Dragon Badge
Dragon Attack
Dragon Land
TERRAN STRIKE MARINES
The Dotari Salvation
Rage of Winter
Valdar’s Hammer
The Beast of Eridu
THE LAST REAPER
The Last Reaper
Fear the Reaper
Blade of the Reaper
Wings of the Reaper
Flight of the Reaper
Wrath of the Reaper
Will of the Reaper
Descent of the Reaper
Hunt of the Reaper
Bastion of the Reaper
ORPHAN WARS
Orphan Wars
Song of War
BLUE SUN ARMADA
Blue Sun Armada
Crisis…coming soon.
SHORT STORIES
Boss
Fire Prince
Ice Field
Sgt. Orlan: Hero of Man
The Darklady
ASSASSIN PRIME
The Hand of Empyrean
Spiderfall
Book Description
War is coming.
Duke Uron Marlboro led his mighty house to victory in the Zezner War. The last thing he expected was for his allies to turn on him. With a new civil war brewing, the duke and his family have one option to survive the king’s wrath—
They must flee.
Will they survive the political games of their past? Can they escape their doomed planet and find a new place to thrive before their once great house is destroyed… forever?
Blue Sun Armada is the first in a new epic space opera set in the far-flung future. Legendary mech battles, intense fleet engagements, and deadly politics all make Blue Sun Armada a magnificent read. Pick your side and buy now to start the fight for survival!
Chapter One
Ron fought to keep his eyes open as his mech tipped sideways.
A dream woman whispered in his head. Send them out to make the universe fit for expansion.
WHANG!
And then what do we do with them? A second stranger laughed through the chaos of his nightmare.
Ron blinked away his confusion.
WHANG!
Alarms blared. His mech plowed visor first into the ground. “When I find who’s hitting me—!”
WHANG! WHANG!
He twisted the controls to spread his mech hands and feet, then rocked back and forth, struggling to get turned around. “I hate this part of kicking ass.”
“Then stop going unconscious,” a more familiar woman crooned in his ear. “And show me what kind of man you are.”
“You sound sexy. Do I know you?” His body clenched in pain, muting his clever flirtations for several seconds. When he tried again, each word was strained. “Any chance I can buy you a drink when this is all over?”
“Sure thing, big guy. But I’m married to Duke Uron of House Marlboro.”
“Hey, that’s me. How’d I get so lucky?” Ron had tried to ban Patricia Wilson-Marlboro from combat, but that had worked about as well as a parachute made of bricks. “Why is my mech all cattywampus?”
“Ron! Stop being an ass and get up!” she shouted, her voice distorting in his helmet speaker. “There’s still fighting to be done. Don’t embarrass me by dying.”
He wanted to search for her but didn’t have the energy. His mech was still on a hill or something with his feet above him. His short-term memory was fuzzy. An enemy pounded his armor with a hammer. I feel like the inside of a gong.
WHANG! WHANG! WHANG!
Ron turned on his side, swung his power-sword and missed, digging its oscillating blades into rocky soil. Grit and metal shavings peppered his visor. Sparks flew like a chimera’s wings.
Another hammer blow to his mech’s control center, the vehicle head that held most of his body, stunned him. This crazy Zezner was getting to be a problem. As distracting as the attack was, it didn’t push the dream out of his head.
Who was the stranger and why did she visit him every night?
Send them out to make the universe fit for expansion.
The phrase was a sacred maxim as old as time. What right did this woman have to the words? And what did the rest of it mean?
And then what do we do with them?
Static scrambled the image. Blackness filled the inside of his mech’s noisy cockpit.
“I really feel like I should be doing something,” he said to himself.
“You. Should be. Fighting! Oh, I hate it when you get concussed!” Patricia cursed like a foot soldier for several seconds, her voice modulated by the rhythm of her mech stomping over uneven ground.
Ron took a deep breath, held it, and exhaled slowly as many senseis had taught him. His mind quieted and his body relaxed. The violent insults to his mech armor seemed less important. His power-sword came out of the dirt. The warm dopamine feel of paradise beckoned him back to the dream.
“Just. Let. Me. Sleep.”
“You can’t sleep, Ron! You’re getting smashed by a Zezner four-leg mech. Do I have to come over there and save you?”
“Stop nagging me, woman!”
“Ron!”
A new klaxon blared inside of his mech. “Alert! Alert! Alert!”
Duke Uron “Ron” Marlboro, lord and battle commander of his house, realized he was going to die right now if he didn’t do something. And that seriously annoyed him.
The Zezner shouted, a rare thing for his kind. “Aha, the human makes a final desperate plea for mercy!”
Ron jammed his hand controls forward and thrust out his legs. His mechanized armor responded. Servos whined. Heat exhaust ports flared, illuminating his suddenly wary enemy. The Zezner had painted his four-legged mech bright red—probably matching his skin. Ron would find out when he pried the son-of-a-bitch from the carbo-fiber shell.
The four-legged mech slipped. Seconds later, they slid unchecked toward the edge of a cliff.
“Can you swim, near-human?” With a flick of his wrist, he extended a spike from his right arm and jammed it through Ron’s faceplate.
“I’m human, you Zezner dog. What is it with this near-human crap?” Ron grunted, digging the wedge-shaped toes of his machine and the fingers of his free hand into the crumbling terrain.
“You will drown when we embrace the White Ocean,” the Zezner said. “My glorious emperor will lead my people to victory.”
Ron scrambled over the four-legged machine, stepping on every surface of his enemy that would ho
“My face is not a step ladder,” the alien said with classic Zezner stoicism.
“Hey, whatever works.” Ron sliced off one of the alien’s legs with his power-sword. The harder he tried to climb against the avalanche, the farther and faster he fell. Before long, he could see nothing through the upturned dust and debris. He grunted curses and was vaguely aware of his wife shouting at him again. The Zezner rattled strange words across the challenge channel.
Beyond the edge of the cliff was a six-hundred-meter drop to the White Ocean. The glacial flow into it was unforgiving. His inertial dampers wouldn’t save him from the impact, and he had a hole in his faceplate. Glacial melt would carry his corpse to the oceanic trench and the darkness that waited at its bottom.
The Zezner four-leg went over.
Ron snatched hold of the ledge with one powered gauntlet.
“Patricia! What’s the record for holding onto a cliff with one hand?” He wished he could see her one last time. His heads-up display was smeared with grime. For all he knew, she was on the other side of the fight.
“Are you holding a weapon?”
“Of course I’m holding a weapon!”
“Then drop it and use both hands. I’m sending Victor and his friends,” Patricia said. “One second… no you don’t you son-of-a—! Get some! Get some! You like that? Yeah? Eat this! Sorry, sweetie, I’m back now.”
Ron heard the sound of micro-rockets being fired. She was from House Wilson and they loved their enhanced weaponry. He powered down his chainsaw and methodically sheathed it. Then, with two hands, he held on and waited. Physical strength mattered in a Mechanized Electro-Nuclear Combat Hulk. Everything was an enhancement. Otherwise mechs would just be robots better handled by remote control than pilots.
Time passed. The battle raged on without him. Victor seemed to be taking his ever-loving sweet time.
“Anyone up there? I’m growing alarmed.”
“Father? What the hell are you doing?” Victor said from the top of Ron’s inglorious descent.
“I was considering a swim in the White Ocean.”
“I don’t know. The ice is pretty thick this time of year. How’re your impact dampers?”
“Less than optimal.”
Victor laughed. “Mother says you’re in time-out.”
“I can’t be in time-out! I’m the duke! Get me off this ledge!”
“Kilo and Marsten will pull you up. They’re two of my best.”
Victor’s distinct squadron-leader unit backed away. Marsten and Kilo’s flamboyantly painted mechs took his place and lowered cables. Ron attached them, nearly falling each time he switched hands. For all their polish and shine, Victor’s friends fought as well as any in the service of House Marlboro.
As for his youngest son, the man was giving the Zezners grief—accelerator guns, rockets, and slashes with his power-sword, one after another.
“That’s my boy. Go out there and get some!” Ron struggled over the edge, shooing away Victor’s warriors with one of his giant hands. “Go watch his back. On the double, Marlboros.”
Taking a deep breath, and readying a witty response to anything his wife might say when he limped into the fray, he stomped up the slope and gazed over an epic battle. All the houses of Gildain were arrayed against the Zezner invaders.
“This is my victory,” he said quietly. His head throbbed and his arms felt like he’d removed them and had a cheap surgeon sew them back together with fire. Dead men, women, and destroyed mechs littered the wide field of destruction and chaos.
But the Zezners were nearly defeated. Ten years after their most recent invasion. After decades of struggle, humanity had finally emerged victorious. Once this battle was over. Which it wasn’t. Not yet.
Send them out to make the universe fit for expansion.
Ron shook his head.
And then what do we do with them?
Who was the dream voice talking about? The people of Gildain, the Zezner, someone else? Ron, in his heart, knew the answer and didn’t like it. His dreams were all about the people of Gildain. And the narrator doesn’t consider us human.
Ron marched down the hill toward a Zezner giving his best warriors a hard time. Drawing his power-sword, he sliced off the alien machine’s fourth leg, then split its head when it turned toward his attack. Unlike the hind leg, this part of the armor protected flesh and bone. The heat of the blade cauterized some of the blood and gore leaving his victim’s skull.
He didn’t look at it for long.
“Duke! Thank you! How goes the battle?” the warrior asked.
“Nothing the nanites and a malt whiskey can’t fix. Get back on-line. We need to clean up this battlefield.”
Atmosphere-void fighters, more often called AT-VO by the pilots who flew them, streaked across the sky, waggling their wings in salute, then strafing the enemy four-legs.
Ron took stock of the Gildain mech warriors. His colors, red and gold, dominated this area and were driving the Zezners toward the center. The sector on his right was held by blue and silver mechs belonging to House Spirit. They preferred lighter machines that were fast and operated by highly skilled pilots who were masters of personal combat outside of their armored machines. Ron had gone to boarding school with Stephani Spirit, their current duchess. He liked her more than his wife liked her.
To his left were the black and gray behemoths of House Bronc. The leader of that house was neither friend nor foe. Politically speaking. They respected each other, and that was enough. Today, all houses were united against the Zezner.
Human-piloted mechs steadily drove the alien invaders toward the center and forced them to dismount and kneel.
Ron’s wife, Patricia, and two of his children stood by his side. Victor was all a son could be and his eldest daughter, Fortune, made him so proud he didn’t feel like the day was real. Gregory, his eldest son, was otherwise engaged but deserved to be here as much as anyone.
Ron climbed down from his mech and took his wife’s hand. “I am the luckiest man alive.” He swept his eyes over her gymnast’s body and thick blonde hair. Black with red and gold accents, her mech suit clung to every curve of her torso. She seemed to like the way he loomed over her.
“Who will have two black eyes and hundreds of stitches by morning,” she said.
He laughed. “Nothing can stop us now, wife.”
“Are you talking about all of Gildain or only House Marlboro?”
“Both. Either. You pick.”
She reached one arm around his waist and hugged him as they walked to the victory ceremony. “We’re together. That’s all I ever wanted.”
“Victor will get his own house, I think. No need for him to wait on an inheritance. There is enough glory for all of us. Fortune, as well. She did good work today. Proved her detractors fools.”
“Or the kids can stay part of Marlboro-Wilson,” she said, watching his reaction carefully. “As Gregory has chosen.”
“Bah. Small thinking leads to small victories. Heroes of the Zezner War should be rewarded properly. There isn’t room in Marlboro for Gregory, Victor, Fortune, and Peps. The Legislature will approve Victor’s war chest, and we will have two Marlboro armies.”
Ron and Patricia separated to walk with a bit more dignity and joined the other war leaders of Gildain, where the Zezner emperor knelt in pools of oil and blood.
