Showing results by author "Vaughn Heppner" in All Categories

The brutal war of extinction enters a horrifying new round as the cyborgs arrive from the Neptune System, in this, the third book of the series. The Highborn are remorselessly crushing the obsolete Homo sapiens. Gambling with humanity’s existence, Supreme Commander James Hawthorne attempts to lure the dreaded Doom Stars into a trap. Social Unity’s combined Battlefleet is the bait. The cyborgs are Hawthorne’s secret weapon. Unfortunately, for Marten Kluge, a vast space battle threatens to take place around Mars.

Guided by their inhuman logic, the cyborgs maneuver new planet-wreckers, Lurkers, and secretive drone fleets into position. Waiting for the word are massed stealth-capsules, ready to fire cyborg drop-troops onto selected planets, moons, and habitats. This time the assaults won’t stop until the cyborgs conquer the solar system. Highborn Grand Admiral Cassius has a deadly new weapon and a plan to defeat the terrible enemy. First, he must assassinate Supreme Commander James Hawthorne, his former ally.

Despite being all alone - the only one of his kind - Bast Banbeck has generously helped humanity time and again against the death machines, saving us from extinction. Years ago, Jon Hawkins promised Bast that he would hunt for and save the Sacerdotes in return. But the homesick Bast is losing hope, drowning his sorrows in extended drinking bouts. Now, Intelligence learns there are Sacerdote prisoners 162 light-years away. Jon leads the rescue operation, using the void to slip undetected into enemy territory.

Jon Hawkins and his crew are exhausted and homesick. They've destroyed the alien machine menace, going deep into the Kuiper Belt to annihilate the secret A.I. base. From out here, the sun looks like just another star. It's a lonely existence. They're ready to go home. What they don't know - what no one could - was that the A.I. destroyer was only a scout. More alien vessels drop out of hyperspace. This is an A.I. assault. The clock to human extinction has begun ticking.

The hive-like soldiers of Social Unity invade Tanner's world. After a bitter fight, a handful of freedom fighters make it off-world to continue the resistance from space. One by one, Social Unity eliminates the freedom fighters until only Tanner and his ship are left. Then, they trap him on a luxury space station. From prison, Tanner makes a deal with a mysterious Earthman, Lord Acton. The Earthman is vague about a stealth mission on the galactic rim, but Tanner is desperate.

Sometimes defending those you love means risking everything and attempting the most dangerous task in the universe: making a planetary assault against a heavily entrenched enemy. It's grim and always ugly. But as long as men refuse to bow their heads to conquerors, they will take the fight to the enemy or die trying. Three masters of military science fiction have come together here to tell harrowing tales of high-tech mayhem.

AD 2457. The longest space voyage in history has begun: 230 light years from a ravaged Earth to the pristine star system of New Eden - a beacon of hope following the Doom Star days. Aboard the ship are human colonizers, the Space Navy, fierce “Monitors” once bred to fight Cyborgs, and four “Specials” - humans with psionic abilities, capable of ripping holes in space to jump vast distances.

It's nuclear war, mutants, and killer machines on a dead world that won't stop fighting. Jake Bayard didn't plan on visiting Tellus—nobody does. But when the obelisk sends him to this radiation-soaked nightmare, he's got bigger problems than dying slowly from contaminated air. Someone...

Human pioneers fleeing Earth for the promised land of New Eden found hell instead, falling prey to the reptilian Kresh. But street-savvy Cyrus Gant escaped the aliens, rescued master telepath Klane, and began a desperate journey to head off the impending Kresh invasion of Earth.

Humanity put all its fading hopes in New Eden, a pristine star system 230 light-years from the ravaged Earth. But upon arrival, the would-be colonists encountered the Kresh - a diabolical alien race who quickly captured the human starship and tortured its inhabitants in hopes of learning the coordinates of Earth. Street-smart Cyrus Gant managed to escape, crashing to the surface of a nearby moon terraformed by the Kresh and inhabited by primitive humans.

The Space Marines are in the Oort Cloud, racing in their insertion pods to the frozen planetoid of Tyche. Alone in the dark, outnumbered and outgunned by the cyborgs waiting for them on the methane-ice surface, the hour of desperation has arrived. This novella is set in the Doom Star series.