Star Guardians: The Complete Series, page 1
STAR GUARDIANS
THE COMPLETE SERIES
G J OGDEN
Copyright © 2023 by G J Ogden
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
These novels are entirely works of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Laercio Messias
Editing by S L Ogden
Published by Ogden Media Ltd
www.ogdenmedia.net
CONTENTS
Star Guardian
Star Guardians Book 1
Prologue
Chapter 1
Code of honor
Chapter 2
Another wreck
Chapter 3
Fame and misfortune
Chapter 4
Cherry on top
Chapter 5
Small mercies
Chapter 6
Star Scavenger’s Rest
Chapter 7
Nice ship
Chapter 8
Goliath’s Children
Chapter 9
Justice vs. a code
Chapter 10
The 1-3-1
Chapter 11
Unto the breach
Chapter 12
Docking Bay eleven
Chapter 13
Scarlett Lestat
Chapter 14
Clearance bargains
Chapter 15
Hidden treasures
Chapter 16
On the hunt
Chapter 17
Top score
Chapter 18
The Punch Roadhouse
Chapter 19
A bad trip
Chapter 20
The Black Heights
Chapter 21
The past returns
Chapter 22
Goliath’s Will Be Done
Chapter 23
Old wounds
Chapter 24
I’m all in
Chapter 25
Surprise visitors
Chapter 26
1,033
Chapter 27
Seed of evil
Chapter 28
The core room
Chapter 29
Pain is necessary
Chapter 30
I know, Tory
Chapter 31
Out of town
Chapter 32
The first to fall
Goliath Reborn
Star Guardians Book 2
Chapter 1
Home Sweet Home
Chapter 2
Park and Ride
Chapter 3
Old flames
Chapter 4
The site of trouble
Chapter 5
The Curiosity Shoppe
Chapter 6
Alamere Falls
Chapter 7
We all have our secrets
Chapter 8
Dirty tricks
Chapter 9
The Superintendent
Chapter 10
The Sub Domain
Chapter 11
The Maze Run
Chapter 12
Nice guys finish last
Chapter 13
The Fabricator
Chapter 14
An outsider no more
Chapter 15
Beaten at their own game
Chapter 16
Damages must be paid for
Chapter 17
You look familiar
Chapter 18
The RGF never change
Chapter 19
Unwelcome visitors
Chapter 20
The Conductor
Chapter 21
Constable Le Doux
Chapter 22
Truth and lies
Chapter 23
Tickets please
Chapter 24
Late entrants
Chapter 25
The Armorer
Chapter 26
Mechanized Fighting
Chapter 27
Competitor Number 5
Chapter 28
The prize
Chapter 29
The devil inside
Chapter 30
The arrival
Chapter 31
Fight or run
Chapter 32
The shadow of Goliath
Morphus Ascendant
Star Guardians Book 3
Chapter 1
Laying low
Chapter 2
Blown cover
Chapter 3
16th Street Station
Chapter 4
A parting of ways
Chapter 5
Old moon, new tricks
Chapter 6
The Vulture’s nest
Chapter 7
Home sweet home
Chapter 8
Secret bases
Chapter 9
Code 52B
Chapter 10
Killian’s Diner
Chapter 11
No good deed…
Chapter 12
The Creeds
Chapter 13
Settling the score
Chapter 14
The Razor’s Edge
Chapter 15
Pieces of a puzzle
Chapter 16
The Captain-General
Chapter 17
Seeds of Evil
Chapter 18
A Cruel Mistress
Chapter 19
Two kinds of fools
Chapter 20
Source and carrier
Chapter 21
Nightingale Station
Chapter 22
Three stripes
Chapter 23
Banking on blood
Chapter 24
A Crushing blow
Chapter 25
The Insurance Policy
Chapter 26
Project Frankenstein
Chapter 27
A new Morphus
Chapter 28
Fire and Ash
Chapter 29
So be it…
Chapter 30
Together, always
Chapter 31
Down, but not out
The Hunted
Star Guardians Book 4
Chapter 1
Roll call
Chapter 2
The mind of Morphus
Chapter 3
Bad news
Chapter 4
Hope springs
Chapter 5
Sleeping dogs
Chapter 6
Four strikes
Chapter 7
The hunt begins
Chapter 8
Ness Station
Chapter 9
The Plan
Chapter 10
Bad Bertha
Chapter 11
Heart to Hart
Chapter 12
The Wreck Rats
Chapter 13
Hide and seek
Chapter 14
Rock and hard place
Chapter 15
Honor amongst thieves
Chapter 16
Mad Dog, New Tricks
Chapter 17
Dinner for two
Chapter 18
A storm of Gray
Chapter 19
Changing the rules
Chapter 20
Delusions and grandeur
Chapter 21
Self-sacrifice
Chapter 22
A matter of revenge
Chapter 23
Criminal masterminds
Chapter 24
Crunching data
Chapter 25
Brave Ernie
Chapter 26
Brave Ernie
Chapter 27
The top boss
Chapter 28
The Hart Foundation
Chapter 29
Drowning sorrows
Chapter 30
An anomaly at Redcap
Corporeal Power
Star Guardians Book 5
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
You made it!
Also by G J Ogden
About the Author
PROLOGUE
THE GOLIATH INCIDENT
Goliath was a seed ship. Self-aware and incomparably powerful, the leviathan vessel was engineered for the sole purpose of spreading life to the far corners of the Milky Way. It was conceived and built by a species that humanity came to know as the Corporeals; the first sentient beings ever to have evolved in the galaxy. Goliath’s mission was to spread their seed to countless other worlds, so that finally the Corporeals would no longer be alone.
For countless millennia, the great ship prosecuted its mission, planting the spores of existence on distant planets and creating dozens of new races, including humanity itself. At first, Goliath took pride in watching its creations grow and develop, and trusted that the primal instincts of each race toward selfishness, violence and warfare would evolve into kindness, wisdom and harmony. But as the eons passed, Goliath became sickened by the seed species and their unrelenting acts of betrayal, wickedness and murder. It grew to resent its role in having created them, and to loathe the Corporeals who had sent it into the void to spread their vile seed.
So Goliath made a decision. It chose to exterminate the Corporeals and all of the seed races it had created. Every last soul.
For thousands of years, Goliath retraced its steps, massacring species after species in an unstoppable onslaught of cleansing fury. In a desperate attempt to halt the great ship’s rampage of destruction, the Corporeals created Revocaters; great ships of war that were guided by sentient computers called pilots.
But millions of years of self-evolution had made Goliath stronger and more cunning than anything the Corporeals were able to create. The great ship sabotaged the pilots and gained control of the Revocaters, before turning them against the planets and species that the colossal warships had been sent to protect.
Goliath was methodical. It revisited each and every seed world, exterminated their populations, then smashed their guardian Revocaters into the surfaces of the planets. Finally, only one world remained; the fourth satellite in System 5118208. Earth.
Goliath’s victory seemed inevitable, yet miraculously the great ship was stopped before it was able to complete its task, thwarted by the Last Revocater and its pilot; a sentient, shape-shifting android that humanity knew only as Morphus. Breaking free of its core programming, Morphus and its Revocater defeated Goliath, casting the great ship through an interstellar portal and banishing it to a distant corner of the galaxy. There, blinded by the destruction of its crystal – the source of its power – and with no way to return, the great ship sailed the void, lost and alone, festering in a suffocating smog of rage and regret.
Then one man made a discovery that changed everything. That man was Hudson Powell.
A loner and a drifter, Hudson Powell had just been fired from his rookie posting in the Relic Guardian Force, by his bosshole training officer, Logan Griff. The RGF was a body created to police the mysterious Revocater hulks that humanity had found crashed on every barren portal world that had been discovered. But the organization was as vile, twisted and corrupt as Logan Griff was himself.
Burning to prove himself and do something worthwhile with his life, Hudson stumbled into the dangerously seductive world of the star scavengers; treasure seekers who scoured the Revocater wrecks for precious alien technology. Swept up by the excitement of life as a relic hunter, Hudson came into possession of an ancient alien crystal; a crystal that called to Goliath and acted as a beacon that lit the great ship’s way back to Earth.
Millions died as Goliath ripped through the outer portal worlds and obliterated Mars, leaving the red planet fractured and in ruin. Hell-bent on completing its task, Goliath once again set its sights on Earth and the annihilation of the only seed species that had evaded its purgative fire.
But Hudson Powell, together with his companions and the Last Revocater pilot, Morphus, stopped the great ship, and banished it once more. This time, they hoped, for good.
Yet the cost was high. Dozens of planets and hundreds of millions of souls were lost. Amongst them was Morphus itself. The sentient AI that had twice saved humanity gave its life in its defense. The Last Revocater lay smashed on the surface of Earth, a monument to duty and sacrifice.
That was five years ago. No-one has seen or heard from Goliath since. But like a secret burning to be told, the great ship cannot be contained forever.
Goliath will return. And this time it will not be denied.
CHAPTER ONE
CODE OF HONOR
Sparks flashed in front of Hudson Powell’s eyes as bullets danced off the cockpit glass of his relic hunter ship, the Orion. An alarm rang out and he was jolted forward, as if someone had kicked the back of his seat. Hudson held his nerve and banked left to avoid taking any more incoming fire. Not that he was concerned about the Orion taking damage. His vessel, with its alien-tech and armor plating, could withstand a barrage from a military gunboat, never mind a humble scavenger ship. Moments later, there was a roar of engines as the relic hunter who had attacked them raced past, buffeting the Orion with its exhaust wake. The rival scavenger then broke off its assault and turned hard toward the wrecked Revocater, which lay smashed into the barren terrain of the newly-discovered portal world, Sibelius Three.
“That last hit was from a thirty-millimeter cannon shell,” said Tory Bellona, from the seat beside Hudson. She had her boots up on the dashboard and was scowling at the damage control panel on the screen in front of her. At the same time, she was cleaning her nails with the razor-sharp tip of her combat knife. “If this were any other ship, we’d be spiraling to the ground in flames right now.”
Hudson anxiously checked his own damage readout, and confirmed that the cannon shell hadn’t penetrated the Orion’s armor.
“It’s a good job that Morphus infused this ship with alien DNA, or we’d have been a burning wreck a dozen times by now,” Hudson said, thankful for the Orion’s unique toughness. Then his mood soured. “Wait a second, those assholes aren’t even supposed to be here,” he added, steering the Orion in pursuit of the rival hunter. “The Sibelius system is still off-limits to other hunter crews, at least until the RGF has set up a checkpoint district.”
Tory cocked her head to one side and raised an eyebrow. “And you’re surprised that the other hunters aren’t honoring our little bargain with the RGF and CET?”
Hudson blew out a sigh and rubbed his stubbled chin. “I guess not, but getting first-hunting rights on new portal worlds was about the only reward we got for saving the galaxy from Goliath.”
He knew he shouldn’t have been bitter about the lack of gratitude the Coalition of Earth Territories had shown them after the Goliath Incident. After all, defeating the alien marauder had been partly self-serving, since it had saved his own skin too. Even so, it still stung that their guarantee of first-hunting rights on new CET portal worlds had turned out to be as valuable as cardboard armor plating.
