Last Man Standing

Earth and the Colonies are in a fight to the death against the Brotherhood's civilization in the Andromeda Galaxy and, to make things worse, an advanced civilization called the Cyrens has threatened to attack the new colonies settled in Andromeda if Earth's fleets don't start attacking the Brotherhood's forces. Up till now, Earth's warships have managed to remain undetected by the Brotherhood's fleets but that was over; Admiral Talent is being forced to initiate attacks against the Brotherhood or run the risk of the new colonies being destroyed.
Earth only has twenty-one Sha Class warships in Andromeda and they are heavily outnumbered by the Brotherhood warships and Berserker's. The Cyrens have stated they will delay attacking the new colonies until the Brotherhood has been defeated but offer no assurances they won't attack the colonies once that's done. If, by some miracle, Earth manages to defeat the Brotherhood then the Cyrens might attack the colonies anyway.
Earth is in the untenable position of having to fight the Brotherhood without defeating them until some means of taking on the Cyrens' giant warships is discovered. To complicate matters, the alien civilizations attacking the Brotherhood for invading their planets are a clear threat to attack Earth's warships if they discover humans are flying them. They'll be lumped in with the Brotherhood and it will be Earth against every civilization in Andromeda. Things couldn't get much worse...or, could they?

Excerpt from Last Man Standing:

"You may begin recording Computer." Drum smiled and began shouting. After he finished, he ordered, "Computer, replay the recording." He listened and then activated the Brotherhood frequency on his communicator.

A Communication Officer on a Brotherhood battleship announced, "Commander, I'm receiving a communication."
"Put it on the speaker," the Commander ordered.

"... ME?! IS ANYONE RECEIVING ME?! MY BERSERKER IS HEAVILY DAMAGED AND I'M DEAD IN SPACE, ALL SYSTEMS ARE FAILING!!" The Commander turned back to the wall monitor; this was just a pilot that failed in his suicide mission; he should just be allowed to die. "MY SCANNER IS DAMAGED AND IS ONLY RECEIVEING A VERY HIGH FREQUENCY... IT'S A GIANT!! IT'S LARGER THAN ANYTHING I'VE EVER SEEN!!" The transmission broke up for a moment and the Commander turned back around, what was this?
"I CAN SEE IT ON MY MONITOR! IT'S FLASHING BLUE, YELLOW, AND PURPLE AND IS LARGER THAN TWENTY WARSHIPS!! IS ANYONE RECEIVING ME?! IS ANYONE RECEIVING ME?! THE FREQUENCY IS... "
"Get that frequency," the Commander ordered his communications officer. The officer entered it into his panel as they heard, "OH MY CREATOR!! IT'S MOVING TOWARD ME! IT MUST BE ABLE TO HEAR ME!! IT'S TURNING A GIANT BLASTER TOWARD ME AND OPENING... "
The officer turned to the Commander, "The transmission has been suddenly shut off!"
"What was that noise in the background?" the Commander demanded.
"It must have been his systems failing, Commander. Something scared that pilot!"
"Did you get a line on that transmission?" The communication officer nodded. " Get ten ships moving out to investigate. I want a copy of this sent to the Fleet Commander now. Are you able to scan that frequency?!"
"Barely, Commander."
"Give it to the ships going out to scout the area!"

The action starts fast and keeps building up speed. Assassins Guild 4-Last Man Standing will keep you reading well into the night.


Genre: Science Fiction