Showing results by author "Michael G. Thomas" in All Categories

Millions have died trying to shatter the enemy fortifications, and Private Callahan and his comrades are ordered to try again. But this time they have something new. Lines of heavy tanks, their engines revving, and the sky overhead filled with squadrons of fighter aircraft. Their task is to assault an impregnable fortified hilltop, manned by thousands of battle-hardened German soldiers, determined to contest every yard of ground.

Defeats throughout the Afari Sector have pushed the Commonwealth back, leaving only the garrison at Tobruk behind on the Novan desert planet of Kyrenaica. Surrounded on all sides, the beleaguered garrison refuses to yield, even as starfighters strafe its ports, and enemy assault walkers pound its damaged walls. Each day, the garrison holds on, giving the Commonwealth and its allies time to prepare for a counter offensive.

The largest invasion in history begins as the Vrokan Empire breaks its alliance with the vast expanse of the Communist Confederation. First to be struck is the border world of Byelorus Primaris. Soldiers, cybernetic assault troops, and hundreds of armored walkers make planetfall and strike the ring of fortresses that surround the city. Greatest of these is the dilapidated Brest-Litousk Stronghold, now home to multiple Red Army regiments, NKVD border forces, cadets, and their families.

Valentine's last memories were of the brutal last stand on Deimos. It was a battle that costs the lives of thousands, and left the moons of Mars shattered, perhaps never to recover. Valentine lost so much more than just her life. She watched her friends and comrades fall one by one, with many sacrificing themselves in vain to stoop the onslaught until she too fell in battle. They might be gone, but a Nova never really dies. Broken and dying, she has been patched together like so many times before. Valentine has little idea of where she ends and the machine begins.

All that stands in their way is the mighty Space Fortress Tallinn, but even its garrison, starfighters, and orbital defences are no match for hundreds of thousands of Vrokan terror soldiers that swamp the planetoid. To make matters worse, special operatives attack from within, even arming prisoners locked deep in the heart of the fortress. The fortress cannot hope to stop the invasion, but every extra hour they fight gives the Leningrad Metropolis, heart of the city planet Neva time to ready their defences against the inevitable onslaught.