In the 22d century, when the Japanese ruled an interstellar empire from the Earth, an imperial task group was dispatched to put down with minimum bloodshed the three-way colonial revolt on a factory world the rebels called Suid Afrika. Interstellar warfare is expensive, so the task group was considerably undergunned, a mix of orbiting ground-attack craft, light infantry, and logistics units. And its quality varied, from the supersharp troops of Lieutenant Colonel Anton Vereshchagin's 1st Battalion, 35th Imperial Infantry (Rifle), to the inept senior officers of the task group staff. At first, and as usual, the fighting all went the Impis' way. Then the crafty Boers found a way to take advantage of an admiral's stupidity. All too soon, the war came down to a single battalion against a world. . .

A Small Colonial War

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Frezza, Robert A.

Science Fiction

Del Rey

Ken MacKay's career in space was going nowhere. The decrepit trading ship he served on was also going nowhere: the Rustam's Slipper was grounded on Schuyler's World, a backwater planet lacking even a good bar. For diversion, Schuyler's offered bad bars, cute yet conniving aliens called Rodents, and Catarina -- a mysterious, beautiful, unsettlingly smart woman. Catarina Wanted a berth on the Slipper; the Slipper needed a crew member. She Was hired. But Ken soon discovered that Catarina was more than a vamp with a razor-sharp wit. First was her case of McLendon's Syndrome, an obscure little contagious disease treatable only with chocolate-chip cookies. Then there were all the secrets she was hiding. So she wasn't the most trustworthy ally a guy could want as the Slipper hurried straight into murder, mayhem, intrigue, and an interspecies war -- but she was all Ken had. And unless she helped Ken whip the crew into shape and muster the misfits and malcontents of Schuyler's World, it would be the shortest war on record... Del Rey Discovery Experience the wonder of discovery with Del Rey's newest authors!

McLendon's Syndrome

Six years after Lt.-Colonel Anton Vereshcagin's 1st Battalion, 35th Imperial Infantry Regiment (Rifle) quelled the revolt that marooned it on Suid-Africa, another fleet appears in the skies: Earth has not forgtten Suid-Afrika, nor has the Japanese company that once ran the planet. The fleet is to reintroduce what the Japanese think of as order--ever higher production norms for the metals that make interstellar flight possible, and compelled obedience to the company's rules. There are no Caucasians among the new forces, and even the soldiers of the Manchurian regiment are led by the Japanese. Despite Lt.-Col. Vereschagin's efforts to prevent bloodshed, war eventually begins, and he sides with the colonists. Vereschagin realizes that Tokyo cannot overlook the loss of a planet to rebellion; it has an interstellar empire to protect. No, Tokyo must be convinced that further attacks are dangerous--and to do that, Vereschagin has a plan....

Fire in a Faraway Place

Literature & Fiction

United States

Solely because of his brilliant leadership and daring tactical skills, renegade Lieutenant-Colonel Anton Vereshchagin has been lured out of retirement by a representative of His Imperial Majesty's Japanese government -- the same government Vereshchagin betrayed when he led the planet Suid-Afrika in a successful revolt, after he had commanded the Japanese campaign to conquer it.Now Vereshchagin's dangerous mission is to make the first manned contact with the inhabitants of the newly discovered planet Go-Nihon. The potential benefits to mankind are enormous, but so are the perils. For beneath the planet's alien beauty lurks a civilization whose technology is in some areas slightly ahead of man's -- and a race whose instincts may be far deadlier.When Vereshchagin's tiny fleet enters orbit around Go-Nihon, it is met with nuclear rockets. But those are easily destroyed, so the planet's rulers agree to negotiations and all seems to be going well. Then, in a surprise attack, the aliens kidnap the entire negotiation team, and Vereshchagin has to coordinate the assaults from space, ground attacks, and commando missions to rescue the prisoners and convince the aliens of the value of peaceful coexistence.It's a lesson Vereshchagin and the men of his 1st Battalion, 35th Infantry (Rifle) could die trying to teach...

Cain's Land

On the lam from a vicious ex-wife who'd won everything but the kitchen sink in the divorce, Ken MacKay was a journeyman crew member on Rustam's Slipper, the sorriest scow ever to move cargo between stars. Then in a low-class spacers' bar in a miserable town on a no-name world he met Catarina Lindquist, the kind of girl his mom had always warned him about. She had alabaster skin, platinum hair, and slender legs that went from here to there and back again via the scenic route. Catarina's yen for Ken was almost as strong as her passion for chocolate. Alas for Ken, Catarina's other obsession was infectious, and so was she. Soon, Ken too needed chocolate to control the symptoms of McLendon's Syndrome-- they'd live damn near forever but they'd always have a Chunky (tm) on their back. Soon Naval Intelligence found a devious use for their mutual affliction: it assigned Ken and Catarina to the planet Macdonald, whose nonhuman inhabitants had a quaint theory about the true Secret Masters of the Human Race . . .

The VMR Theory