War core book4 the guard.., p.1
War Core, Book4: The Guardian, page 1
Copyright © 2023 by Dean Henegar
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Recap
Introduction
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
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Afterword
“Who dares, wins. Who sweats, wins. Who plans, wins.”
– British Special Air Service (SAS)
★
Recap
If you haven’t read the first book in the War Core series, you can find a copy here on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09CHG5GK9
Should you decide not to, or if it has been some time since you’ve read Book 1, here’s a quick recap.
Hugh Logan is teaching an IT night class when a group of government officials arrives to inform him that he is being recalled to active duty despite having retired some time ago. Reluctantly, Hugh joins them and finds himself in a secret military facility. It turns out that, since shortly after World War II, the world has been fighting a secret war to keep alien invaders at bay—a war humanity is losing. Hugh has been selected by the seemingly omnipotent Galactic Conflict Authority (GCA), the group that controls these battles, and he will become something called a war core.
Hugh is placed into the war core, and his consciousness is transferred into the machine. Only after the fact does he discover that his body has been destroyed. Furious, Hugh learns the officials had no choice in the matter and the GCA requires their silence, lest humanity face severe repercussions. He meets his advisors, a combination of military and civilian personnel who will help him polish his skills and prepare for his various battles.
Hugh must come to terms with his new life but is given little time to do so; he is immediately whisked away to participate in an abbreviated training mission. It turns out that he is transported to an abandoned world to fight out battles. The GCA claims it prepares old planets to use as its battlegrounds in an effort to prevent unnecessary loss of life and the destruction of resources. Hugh is connected to a structure called a command post and instructed on how to build up his base and create combat units. After an introductory training mission, Hugh is rushed into battle to face an alien race called the Krixnas.
Once his mind is transferred to the battle world, Hugh discovers that the mechs he can create will be piloted by actual human soldiers placed in a device called a combat pod back on Earth. His military advisors join him and help him out with the battle, but their advice is limited by the GCA, which filters out much of what they tell him due to a restriction his opponent has purchased. The Krixnas turn out to be an insect-like race, their mechs resembling their real bodies.
The human mechs that Hugh uses to fight his battles resemble vehicles from World War II. It turns out the GCA pulled their designs from that period since the entire planet was embroiled in conflict and rapid development of weaponry was occurring. Heavily armored, the mechs use a plasma-based weapons system, and the humans prove to be excellent ranged fighters, but the Krixnas are deadly up close, using plasma-enhanced tentacles to tear through the human mechs.
Hugh loses his first battle, returning home briefly to review his mistakes and plan how to defeat his foe. The need to win becomes even more important when Hugh learns that some of the soldiers piloting the mechs can be killed during the battle and that his performance influences their survival. With renewed motivation, Hugh uses a gamer strategy in his second battle and emerges victorious. Some aspects of the battle are eerily similar to the real-time strategy types of games played around the world. One of his advisors, a young woman named Maddison, is his gamer liaison, and she informs him of her theory that the GCA is using war cores and conflict between species for entertainment purposes. Coming back from his first loss, Hugh wins the next few battles, securing a section of human space from invasion . . . for a time.
Victorious, Hugh is granted the opportunity for leave and is sent to Harmony Station, a GCA facility in an unknown portion of the galaxy. There, cores can spend the reward points they’ve earned on various upgrades. While on the station, Hugh is given back his human body, and he meets up with the Russian war core, Valery Akalov. Valery advises Hugh that if he gathers an obscene number of reward points, he may even have his body rebuilt permanently back on Earth. Before his leave is over, Hugh runs into a new race, the dinosaur-like Ssath. The Ssath core gets angry at Hugh, going so far as to attack and consume him. Hugh’s body is rebuilt and he finishes out his stay, but he fears that Hssim, the Ssath core, might carry a grudge.
The Krixnas aren’t done with Hugh just yet and challenge his forces to another campaign for a different portion of human space. After a series of long battles, Hugh wins the fight and returns home to find that the Krixnas have surrendered. They were being pressed by the Ssath, who were closing in on their homeworld, prompting them to attack humanity in a desperate attempt to gain lost ground. Now they’ve placed themselves and their homeworld under Earth’s protection, and humanity has been granted a short-term exemption from attack by the Ssath. The war with the Krixnas is over, but Hugh knows that war with the Ssath, a much more powerful foe, is looming on the horizon.
In Book 2 of the series, Hugh continues to battle with other aliens that seek to invade human space and holds his own against more experienced foes. Many of his opponents are locked into rigid fighting styles based on their species’ histories. Hugh gains some rewards and continues to improve under the guidance of his fellow cores and Maddison’s gaming chops. With the secret of the GCA out in public, the human cores work together to share information about the various foes they have encountered.
A desperate call is made from humanity’s former enemy, the Krixnas, who are under assault by the Ssath. Earth is asked to assist the Krixnas as the Ssath close in on their homeworld. Several of the human cores, including Hugh, are assembled into an expeditionary force to assist in the defense of the Krixnas homeworld, which will become a feeding ground for the Ssath if it falls, driving the Krixnas into extinction. They face a single Ssath core, one of the most powerful the Ssath possess. It later turns out this Ssath core is none other than Hssim, the Ssath that killed and feasted on Hugh back on Harmony Station.
A long series of battles ensues for Hugh, the other human cores, and their Krixnas allies. The enemy’s forces push them back and are finally poised to take the capital city. Evacuation of the city is underway, and while the Krixnas no longer have any hope of holding the planet, they have a chance to save most of their civilians if they can hold back the Ssath long enough. Rings of defenses around the city are assigned to the various cores, and they fight like devils to hold on. One of the human cores, the German core Stephan Wagner, leads a desperate charge to disrupt the enemy attack, sacrificing himself and his men to buy everyone more time.
Hugh’s troops hold the line long enough to ensure the evacuation is a success, but the cost is high. Two human cores, the German and British cores, have been terminated, and in the end, the Krixnas homeworld is lost. The performance of the defenders is enough to secure a bit of a breather, as the Ssath are banned from attacking human space for a time. Humanity is given the option to donate the planet Mars to the Krixnas as their new homeworld, and the GCA terraforms it to meet their needs. The Krixnas are now under humanity’s protection and living in Earth’s solar system, but the future Ssath invasion looms, and there are more threats than the Ssath waiting out in the dark of space.
In Book 3 of the series, Hugh and the other human cores are coming to grips with the losses they faced in the campaign to protect the Krixnas homeworld. Hugh and Maddison take up the challenge to fight in simulations against other human cores as they share their knowledge and skills. Playing as the Ssath in the simulation, Hugh and Maddison are victorious in their fight, but their celebration is cut short when the GCA makes an announcement.
The Ssath have burned all of the influence points they have gathered over countless victories to void the protection humanity was supposed to enjoy. Their target is Earth itself, and all of humanity is called in for the fight. All the human cores will participate in a grand battle that will start at the edge of humanity’s solar system and flow all the way to its homeworld.
Just as it had done with the Krixnas, the GCA creates a simulated Earth for the upcoming battle. To everyone’s horror, it is revealed tha t damage to the simulated world will result in damage to the actual Earth, both in terms of the destruction inflicted and the lives lost. Nobody is safe from the battle, and all will share the same threat of death as the cores and the combat pod operators.
A scoring system is created in which each core defends a part of the planet. If the Ssath invaders score enough points, Earth is theirs and humanity becomes prey for their hunting grounds. Hugh is given the job of defending Los Angeles. His core starts with little more than a low-level command post, and he would have no chance of defending against the Ssath if they didn’t have to start their attack at the edge of the solar system.
Several cores are tasked with defending against the invasion in space. The Ssath will arrive with overwhelming force, leaving the humans little chance to win, but they can delay the enemy. Humanity’s space forces do an admirable job and buy the land-based cores time to prepare and build up their defenses. The actual invasion begins, and Hugh will have to battle against several increasingly powerful waves of Ssath.
Hugh does well. He is defending known ground, and his combat pod operators are some of the best in the world. Some unique units are added to Hugh’s roster for the fight, including National Guard troops using actual tanks and combat vehicles, not just their mech versions. The Los Angeles Police Department even has its own units to help defend the core. Oddest of all is the location near the La Brea Tar Pits. Mechanized versions of the giant beasts that once roamed Earth join in the fight, adding a huge mammoth and several saber-tooth tigers to the fight.
As the waves of attacks continue, things start to look a bit grim. Hugh’s forces are depleted and the enemy increases in power. Old and new allies come to the rescue as the Krixnas join the fight, spending the last of their influence points to form a small fleet and create some troops to help defend Earth. Dalven, an alien core that Hugh fought beside when he was whisked away to the Combat Trials, joins the battle with Hugh. His people, the Yaelar, were wronged by humanity’s leaders, but this one core is willing to help him directly to fulfill a debt of honor.
Dalven takes over one of the defensive areas where the Queen Mary is berthed. The old ship is converted into a giant mech that destroys the most powerful weapons the Ssath can bring to bear. Other cores fall, and some are victorious, leaving the decision over whether Earth will stand or fall to Hugh and a handful of others still fighting. The Ssath push hard, but Hugh and his troops fend off the final attack, securing his victory point. Others are successful and humanity is safe from the Ssath threat.
Earth took on one of the great powers and won, causing many other species to seek peace or at least nonaggression pacts with humanity.
The book closes with the Ssath core Hssim fighting to survive in something called the Battle Pits. He creates a brief alliance with the human core Stephan Wagner as they join forces to defeat the challenge. Stephan falls in the battle, and Hssim shows him respect before going on to win the challenge. He is returned home and given a real body once more. Hssim seizes control of the Ssath and orders his advisors to contact the other species. He realizes there is a new foe he must defeat, and he needs allies to do so. Hssim seeks to destroy the GCA itself, but are his plans altruistic or is this another attempt to conquer the universe for the Ssath Empire?
★
Introduction
“Great Leader Hssim, our efforts to enlist the aid of the lesser species have borne little fruit. Perhaps it’s time to reconsider our focus?” Senator Killbaxss said. Hssim could see the ambition in the young senator’s eye, the gleam of hate and jealousy that he understood all too well. Any true Ssath sought to better themselves. After all, the strong must rule, and for the strong to rule, anyone weaker must be torn down for their superiors to thrive.
“It matters not, my leader. Our other investigations have found what you have sought. Only six may challenge the GCA for control, and I think we can find five others to join the champion we choose,” Senator Hissrax said.
Old and crippled, Hissrax was the one exception to the rule that the strongest must rise. The venerable senator was touted as the wisest among the Ssath, and his position was protected from a challenge for as long as he continued to prove useful. Navigating the ways of the GCA and finding obscure information to further the Ssath cause had been his task. Now Hssim had him doing the most important research of his life: finding a way to bring the war to the GCA itself and free his people from their shackles.
“You have succeeded in your task as always. Let all that are here see that Hissrax continues to serve the Ssath people with distinction. Now, tell me what you found,” Hssim said, using his authority to reinforce Hissrax’s position of honor.
“The GCA’s rules and labyrinthine processes are still a mystery,” Hissrax said, “but in my years of service, I have learned to use them well. It has cost us an unfortunate number of influence points, but there does appear to be a way to challenge the GCA for the right to cut ourselves, and all other species, from their grasp.”
“I don’t need a scholarly lecture. Just tell me what I need to do, Honored One,” Hssim said. While he still called Hissrax an honored one, his tone let the elderly scholar know his time and patience were limited.
“My apologies, Great Leader Hssim. I shall be succinct. The path leads back through one you have already traveled: it leads back through the Battle Pits. Your victory was a great one, and it was achieved in the difficult category of individual combat. Joining forces with another, as you did with the human, is a valid option, but the rewards are diluted when more than one victor claims them.”
Hssim leaned forward, his interest growing in what the scholar was saying.
“I have uncovered another version of these Battle Pits,” Hissrax advised, “one that is joined voluntarily and one that must be fought with a team, a team that cannot be composed of more than one member of a species. The rewards for this tournament are ones that you select yourself, and the options for those rewards are myriad. One of the options that I found, hidden among the numerous others, is the option to have your species elevated to full membership in the GCA.”
“We want to destroy the GCA, to slip its shackles, not become part of its rotting carcass. How is this supposed to help us?” Hssim demanded.
“Once again, I offer my apologies, Great Leader Hssim. Let me explain. Should we win the tournament, we can be elevated to full membership, and remember, there are no other living members of the GCA. Their whole system is run on automation, and there is no living claw guiding it. Should we win this tournament and request full membership, ours would be the sole claw upon the controls of the GCA. The Ssath would, in essence, become the GCA, and the entire galaxy would become our hunting ground.”
Hssim sat there, stunned. It was more than he had hoped for. At best, Hssim had envisioned the Ssath and all other species being cut off from the GCA’s slowly deteriorating automated system. They would continue as they had before the GCA ever found them. Given the Ssath’s natural superiority to all others, their technology would eventually allow them to span the stars and conquer as masters of their own destiny, not remain tied to the whims of some foolish system. If what Hissrax claimed was true, and the venerated senator’s research had never been wrong before, the Ssath could win their rightful supremacy all at once, not after centuries or millennia of research and expansion. The Ssath would be the masters of the GCA’s apparatus, and Hssim would be the master of the Ssath—the master of all the universe.
“What drivel. This old one has finally lost his mind,” the brash young Killbaxss interjected. “The influence points he’s wasted on this ‘research’ could have been spent to help us conquer once more. Instead, he’s driven us back into poverty, and given the losses we faced against the humans, we’ll be hard-pressed to defend what we have. It will be decades or centuries before we can retake the offensive. The great leader can’t be foolish enough to buy into this false dream.”
“Bold words from a hatchling. You should show more respect for your betters. Do you dispute Hissrax’s statements? The venerated senator has never been wrong before. Even worse, you have inferred that I was foolish. Is this a challenge, hatchling?” Hssim replied, flexing his claws and showing his teeth to the young fool.
