by Chris Fox
Hold the Line
Ganog Wars Book 2
Chris Fox
Chris Fox Writes LLC
Contents
Dedication
Previously On Ganog Wars
Planetstrider
Prologue
1. Go To Ground
2. Fool's Errand
3. Locals
4. On the Run
5. Scouting
6. Grotto
7. Arena
8. Fight
9. Tourney
10. Elite
11. Ro'kan
12. Quarters
13. Knife's Edge
14. The Price
15. Nameless Ones
16. Put Em Down
17. Last Stand
18. Ambushed
19. Interogation
20. Master
21. Outmanuvered
22. Empress
23. Sparring
24. Sissus
25. Knock, Knock
26. Watch
27. Mobilization
28. Preparation
29. Imperalis
30. The Time is Now
31. Decision
32. Rumors
33. Ready for War
34. Feint
35. Ground War
36. The Beacon
37. Void Wraith
38. Haak
39. Not Amused
40. Great Day
41. Yippee Ki Yay
42. Audacity
43. Trust
44. After Them
45. The Price
46. Warp
47. End This
48. Pact
Epilogue
Press The Line
Destroyer Excerpt
1. Debris
2. You're In Charge
3. Hannan
4. Cat and Mouse
Dedication
For Mary. Your tireless support helps more than I’ll ever adequately express.
Previously On Ganog Wars
Whenever I pick up the 2nd book in a series I'm torn. Should I go back and re-read the first? Or just dive right in?
When I became an author I decided to offer readers a solution. At the beginning of every book I recap the previous book(s), just like you'd see on a television show. I try to make as funny as possible.
In an announcer voice... Last time on Ganog Wars.
Behind the Lines
The prologue opens with a prisoner interrogation. Takkar, Clan Leader of the Vkash, seeks to learn more about this mysterious Coalition of United Species, or CUS for short. Since CUS is a stupid acronym, I chose to go with Coalition instead.
Anyway, Takkar gets all villainy, complete with the muhahaha I'm going to invade the Coalition. He sets a trap, and we already know our heroes are going to walk into it, because... it's on the freaking cover. Like we can literally see them getting their asses handed to them. Plus, the title is Behind The Lines. Spoilers, right?
The Coalition sends a fleet led by Admiral Fizgig, an angry Tigris based entirely on my house cat, to investigate. Fizgig sends in a ground team, while her cloaked fleet waits in orbit. This ground team is commanded by Major Reval, who doesn't much like our protagonist, Nolan.
Nolan is the non-emo version of most Anime heroes, a dude in his 20s who's a total badass in a mech. Reval makes Nolan wait on the ships while he walks into an *gasp* ambush. We're totally shocked, since we just read the prologue...where we were told this was going to happen.
Reval is attacked by large ape-like aliens called the Ganog. Nolan decides to disobey orders, and leads his squad to bail Reval out of trouble. Then Things Go Badly (TM).
Up in space, Fizgig's fleet engages the Ganog. The Ganog start kicking her ass in a way the Void Wraith never achieved. She cleverly uses the enemy's own ships as cover, but knows that she's going to need to retreat...quickly.
Back on the ground things are going south. Early in the book we're told that there are three mounds erected around the city, and we have no idea what they're used for. We find out when 3,000 meter tall Planetstriders step out (see the cover of this book, or download Planetstrider).
The Planetstrider blows up their cruisers, catching Annie in the explosion. Nolan, Edwards, Lena, and Hannan are forced to flee into a rust storm. They take shelter, and realize they have no way off world.
Nolan leads a scouting party into an alien market, where they're approached by a Ganog named T'kon. T'kon says he knows where one of their people is, and will lead them there. Nolan reluctantly agrees, and is brought back to Aluki's shop.
Aluki is a whalorian, adorable little whale people...with rocket launchers. It turns out Annie survived, which is a good thing for me personally. I killed a fan favorite character in my Void Wraith trilogy, and have been informed that if I go the George R.R. Martin route snipers will be dispatched to deal with me. I'm constantly looking over my shoulder.
Meanwhile, Fizgig is trying to find a way to deal with the Ganog's superior technology. She returns to the Birthplace, a mysterious (terribly mysterious) system run by the Ancient Primo. Time passes at an accelerated rate there, speeding the Coalition's manufacturing.
The Coalition has created the Theta Cannon, which fires a micro-singularity. Fizgig's ships are armed with these cannons, but it will take time to outfit them all. Time Nolan and Alpha Company may not have.
We flip back to Nolan, who picks up a Coalition signal. He and T'kon lead the squad to the location, racing to beat the Saurian kill squads. There's a skirmish, and Nolan leads a pair of Coalition survivors to safety. Those survivors turn out to be Burke and Nuchik, both of whom hate Nolan and his squad.
Burke is kind of a dick about, well pretty much everything. Nuchik doesn't talk much, but when she does it's usually to say something dickish. Hannan gets tired of this, and smashes Burke in his smug face with a pot of soup. Things come to a head, but Nolan breaks it up.
He gives a rousing speech about teamwork, then we get a Team America style montage. Nolan's squad starts working together, assembling the parts to build a small warp device so they can send word back to the fleet.
Along the way Nolan keeps looking for something called Gorthians. If you've read the Void Wraith trilogy, you're like...okay, I get it. If not you're probably wondering WTF a Gorthian is. Every twenty-six millennia the Gorthians return to our part of the milky way to harvest it, and when I say harvest I mean eat. The only Gorthian we meet in that trilogy is a moon-sized giant floating eye. Of doom.
They tried that harvesting shit on earth, but Fizgig, Dryker, and Nolan were all like...yeah, no. I won't say more incase you haven't read those books.
Anyway, I bring up the Gorthians because Nolan keeps hearing the Ganog talk about 'Nameless Ones'. The more he hears, the more he thinks they sound an awful lot like the Gorthians. We don't find out if he's right in this book, but anyone who's read this far is pretty damned sure of the answer.
Nolan is pondering this very question when Krekon, the Ganog melter, pops onto the scene. He rolls into Nolan's camp with a whole lot of angry Ganog elites. Fortunately, Sissus is secretly working against Krekon. He manages to warn Nolan, and Nolan is ready when Krekon arrives.
There's a brutal fight where Edwards is crushed under a collapsing roof. All sorts of pew pew, BOOM. Then Nolan has a duel with Krekon, the toughest, baddest, gorilla alien you've ever seen. Nolan pulls it out at the last second and wins. We're shocked.
Beating Krekon gives Nolan the last missing piece of the puzzle. Now they have access to a ship, the one Krekon arrived in. So Nolan launches a desperate plan to get his people off world. He is going to assault one of the planetstriders, while everyone else captures Krekon's cruiser.
This last part should be easy, since Sissus works for Krekon. Sissus tricks the Ganog into opening the ship, and Burke leads a squad in to seize it. Aluki finally uses a rocket launcher. Annie drawls.
The second part is a little harder. How the hell do you do deal with a 3,000 meter Godzilla mutant mech thing? Nolan, T'kon, Lena, and Hannan scale the Planetstrider like it's a mountain. They're only half way up when the planetstrider punches out of the mound.
It fires into orbit, where Fizgig has led her newly outfitted fleet back into battle. They deploy their theta cannons, and actually have some success against the enemy. They're still getting pounded though (huh huh).
Nolan battles his way inside the Planetstrider's control room, where we receive a startling revelation. The technology is definitely Primo. That gives them an idea though. Instead of blowing up the control unit, they remove the core and plug in Edwards. Edwards gets to pilot a 3,000 meter Planetstrider. Pretty much his dream job.
Fizgig has severely damaged the enemy fleet, but is also taking heavy losses. Her flagship is hit, and things are looking grim.
Lena figures out how to use the Planetstrider's warp, so Nolan orders Edwards to warp them into space. They appear near Fizgig's flag ship, and just start wrecking shop. Ganog ships are blown to shit, and Clan Leader Takkar is forced to warp away.
It's almost a total victory, except for two problems. Fizgig's fleet has been savaged, and a lot of her booster mechs were inside Takkar's flagship when it warped away. Our very last chapter shows Khar realizing this, and trying to figure out what the heck he's going to do.
That leads us into the book you're holding. I really hope you enjoy it. If you do, please consider leaving a review. Those are incredibly valuable to indie authors like me.
Thank you so much for reading. =D
-Chris
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Prologue
Takkar's pride mirrored the savaged hull of the Vkash's Fist, his flagship. It was scarred and pocked, with most of the cannons now nothing more than melted lumps. The main cannon was but a memory, and a cruiser-sized hole rent the hull. A thin, crackling membrane of blue energy was all that kept the ship's interior from being sucked through that hole.
The sting of seeing his mighty flagship humbled receded, as the ship itself receded. The shuttle carried him toward the Ganog capital world of Imperalis, the Jewel of the Ganog Imperium. He chose to focus on that, rather than his wounded warship.
His transport wound around the first ring, a sapphire band of ice and rock that orbited the violet world. That ring was fed by the shattered moon, an azure half-sphere. The moon was all that remained of the mythological battle that had birthed the Imperium. The War Before Time, they called it.
The shuttle zoomed closer to the world, dipping below the second ring. This one was smaller, and orbited a different axis. It had a more purplish hue--refracted light from the atmosphere below.
Below them lay the planet's southern continent, a volcanically active region dotted with great cities. The outer cities had been given to the lava, but those closer to the center of the continent were vibrant and alive. Billions of Ganog souls dwelled there, supported by an equal number of labor-slaves.
The ship descended toward the centermost city, a glittering mass of spires lining the slopes of Mount Kethar. The largest spire sat atop the summit, taller than Takkar's dreadnought was long. Thousands of glittering islands floated around the spire in rings, each ring a little smaller than the last. They slowly orbited their respective levels, much as the ice and rock above orbited this world.
Only clan or fleet leaders were allowed to dock at the top ring, the ring the shuttle was making for. Takkar still remembered the first time he'd been allowed to dock here, just after his elevation to fleet leader nearly two decades before. Each time he'd come, it had been to accept another award or promotion--always in praise of his abilities as a leader.
Today was far different. Today, the bonfire of his joy was gone, smothered by the ashes of dread. How would the empress react to his failure?
There was a very real possibility that she'd execute him and his family. Were he advising her, that would be the course he'd recommend. It would send a necessary message about the price of failure.
Yet the empress suffered from the special brand of pride enjoyed by the truly righteous. She considered herself both enlightened and egalitarian, and it was these qualities that Takkar hoped to appeal to.
A slender hope, but all he had.
He inhaled from his lower nostrils, his fur fading to soft grey as the ship floated toward the ivory platform. Only imperial guests were allowed to dock on the spire itself, but when one carried the kind of dire news Takkar had, one ignored such niceties.
"We have arrived, Clan Leader," the techsmith behind him hissed.
He'd forgotten the Saurian. Her red scales were shrouded in the grey robes of her order. She clutched her arcanotome to her chest, the glowing circuitry mostly swallowed by her voluminous sleeves. A black cable snaked from the tome to her temple, feeding pulses of light back and forth. The sight sickened him.
"Shall I send word to the empress?"
"Do it." Takkar leapt from his platform, landing on the ivory-colored metal with a muffled clank. He did not bring his elites, for none stood high enough to be allowed here.
Krekon would have, had he not been slain. Takkar had been forced to flee Ganog 7 before he could verify Krekon's fate, but his death was the only real possibility.
Takkar walked up the gently sloping ramp, toward the arched hallway leading into the spire. The doorway was smothered in gold, with glowing sigils bathing the metal in rich purple. He couldn't read those sigils, but his fur tingled as he passed beneath them--a testament to their power. Had the empress wished, he would have been incinerated upon stepping through.
He took his survival as permission to proceed, and continued up a short corridor that emptied into the spire's interior. The hollow depths disappeared into the distance both above and below; thousands of islands of all sizes slowly orbited the center of the spire, where a single cluster of islands stood above all others.
"I've summoned a platform, Clan Leader," his techsmith murmured. She gave a low bow, careful to keep her eyes downcast.
An unadorned ivory disk floated over, the sloped metal just large enough for a single occupant. Takkar's fur went pale, nearly translucent. He stepped onto the disk, which zoomed slowly toward the royal island.
He passed many curious onlookers, but he kept his gaze focused on the empress's island. He couldn't face their curiosity, or their derision. The idea that a clan leader would be accorded an unadorned disk was...unthinkable.
The disk finally rose to the level of the island, providing the first clue to his fate. The empress stood on the central dais, surrounded by a cloud of attendants. Today her fur was purple, an aesthetic choice no doubt intended to irritate him. As a simple elite, Takkar couldn't control his body the same way she could. His fur revealed his emotions; her metabiology made her fur a canvas to paint as she wished.
"Ahh, Takkar. Join us, please." The empress's melodious voice cut through the low conversations of her attendants, a knife through silk. They fell silent, turning as one to watch his approach. Every last Ganog around the empress was an adept, just as she was. They wore the short white robes of their order, the garments worthless compared to his own armor.
Takkar gave a start when he noted the crowd of black-robed figures along the rim of the dais, behind the empress. Their voluminous robes mirrored those of the techsmiths--but where the techsmith's were unadorned, these were stitched with eldritch runes like those adorning the spire.
Takkar counted the robed figures, noting six in total. The empress had a total of fourteen attendants. Having nearly half of them come from the seeker caste was unprecedented. During previous visits, he'd never seen more than one.
The seekers wer
e gaining in strength. Alarming, but a matter to contemplate only if he survived the next few minutes.
"You've left your axe back on your ship," the empress mused. She puckered full lips, staring down at him regally. "Are you certain you don't wish to fetch it before your audience?"
"If I have need of my axe, then my life is over." Takkar kept his words simple. The empress was not merely an adept; she had the benefits of a full oral education, teaching her everything from mathematics to history. Many in the leadership caste disdained such frivolous pursuits, but Takkar suspected they undervalued knowledge.
"True enough. Then let us determine your fate. Tell me, Takkar. Why do I see only five dreadnoughts? Many of your cruisers are missing. The vessels I do see have all suffered immense damage. What's worse, I have a report that only two of your planetstriders are erecting mounds on the south slope." The empress glided across the floor toward him, halting mere inches away. She was beautiful, her delicate fur covering equally delicate features. "It would appear you've suffered the single greatest military defeat in living memory." She cocked her head, calling to one of the robed figures. "Utfa, attend me."
One of the black-robed figures left the others, taking slow deliberate steps in their direction. He reached up with both hands, exposing milky eyes and a leathered, hairless face. His swift, sure stride belied his apparent age. Like the techsmiths he carried an arcanotome, wired to his wizened temple--yet his frame was heavily muscled, and he walked with a warrior's grace.
He stopped next to them. "What is your will, Empress?"
"You are the keeper of our chronicles, and your arcanotome possesses the sum of our knowledge. Tell me, when was the last time the Imperium suffered a defeat of the magnitude Takkar has shown us?"
Pulses flowed to Utfa's temple from the tome. "It has been four centuries, your grace." He gave a shallow bow. "The Azi clan warred upon the Vkash clan. The Vkash followed Dokkar, a charismatic but unwise fleet leader. He led their forces into battle at Ganog 4. The Azi destroyed two dreadnoughts, and captured nearly all of Dokkar's labor-slaves and techsmiths."
