Classic Space Opera

Within a year, Earth would be a vassal world, with the Sirian invaders triumphant. Only Standish, Earth's Defense Engineer, could halt that last victorious onslaught — and he was helpless, the lone survivor of a prison shipwrecked in uncharted space! 

Across Earth's radiant civilization lay the death-shot shadows of the hideous globe-headed dwarfs from Mars. One lone Earth-ship dared the treachery blockade, risking the planetoid's peril to find Earth's life element on mysterious Saturn of the 10 terrible rings.

For nearly one thousand years, the Core Empire has held together thousands of star systems and billions of citizens. But a coup attempt has broken the empire into pieces. Some planets and systems have survived and still have law and order. Others have fallen to barbarism and piracy. For young Hugh Cascade, this is but a history lesson, even if the nightmares of kinetic weapons exploding have followed him through most of his childhood. Ten years later, the war finds Hugh, now a military cadet.