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The Vanguard Calculus #2
The Proxy War: A Hard Science Fiction Space Fleet Thriller
HE CAN'T HEAR HIS OWN SHIP DYING. HE CAN STILL DO THE MATH.
The blast at Torus Prime took Commander Elias Thorne's hearing, his rank, and most of the people he was supposed to bring home. The tribunal filed the rest under acceptable losses.
Then he decrypted the order behind it. Torus Prime wasn't an ambush that went wrong. It was a cull that went exactly right.
Thorne limps the crippled Aegis into Erebus Anchorage, a hollowed-out asteroid where the only currency is leverage. Eight survivors. One burn left in a reactor that's already cooking itself. No rank left to lose.
What he finds there is a Vanguard logistics broker with Syndicate killers on his heels and a datachip he can't sell.
The chip holds the whole arithmetic.
Casualty projections agreed in advance. Battles booked out by the fiscal quarter. Losses timed to solar storm windows, margins locked, the dead entered as a line item both boards had already initialed. The Vanguard and the Solarian Syndicate aren't fighting a war.
They're running one. Together. For the margin.
Leaking it changes nothing; the algorithm buries proof under deepfakes inside a week. So Thorne picks the one place the lie can't be Point Sedna, where both fleets converge unescorted, once, to trade loss tables face to face.
He'll ride a dead frigate into the middle of the summit, weld a scavenged analog repeater onto a dreadnought's comms spine, and drop the unredacted truth on every hull inside one light-second.
There is no digital attack vector. That's exactly why it works. It isn't a hack. It's a megaphone against a microphone.
The margin for detection is four seconds. Thorne has run every number twice.
He hasn't told the crew what the arithmetic costs.
The Proxy War is a full-length, 86,000-word novel and the second book in The Vanguard Calculus hard military science fiction built on analog engineering, logistics as a weapon, and a crew held together by grease, spite, and margin. For readers who devour the fleet tactics of Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet, the chain-of-command grit of David Weber's Honor Harrington, and the survival math of Andy Weir.
Scroll up, buy now or read free in Kindle Unlimited, and find out what the truth costs.
The blast at Torus Prime took Commander Elias Thorne's hearing, his rank, and most of the people he was supposed to bring home. The tribunal filed the rest under acceptable losses.
Then he decrypted the order behind it. Torus Prime wasn't an ambush that went wrong. It was a cull that went exactly right.
Thorne limps the crippled Aegis into Erebus Anchorage, a hollowed-out asteroid where the only currency is leverage. Eight survivors. One burn left in a reactor that's already cooking itself. No rank left to lose.
What he finds there is a Vanguard logistics broker with Syndicate killers on his heels and a datachip he can't sell.
The chip holds the whole arithmetic.
Casualty projections agreed in advance. Battles booked out by the fiscal quarter. Losses timed to solar storm windows, margins locked, the dead entered as a line item both boards had already initialed. The Vanguard and the Solarian Syndicate aren't fighting a war.
They're running one. Together. For the margin.
Leaking it changes nothing; the algorithm buries proof under deepfakes inside a week. So Thorne picks the one place the lie can't be Point Sedna, where both fleets converge unescorted, once, to trade loss tables face to face.
He'll ride a dead frigate into the middle of the summit, weld a scavenged analog repeater onto a dreadnought's comms spine, and drop the unredacted truth on every hull inside one light-second.
There is no digital attack vector. That's exactly why it works. It isn't a hack. It's a megaphone against a microphone.
The margin for detection is four seconds. Thorne has run every number twice.
He hasn't told the crew what the arithmetic costs.
The Proxy War is a full-length, 86,000-word novel and the second book in The Vanguard Calculus hard military science fiction built on analog engineering, logistics as a weapon, and a crew held together by grease, spite, and margin. For readers who devour the fleet tactics of Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet, the chain-of-command grit of David Weber's Honor Harrington, and the survival math of Andy Weir.
Scroll up, buy now or read free in Kindle Unlimited, and find out what the truth costs.
324 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 30, 2026
About the author
K.R. Vance
11 books4 followersFormer military aviator K.R. Vance traded the cockpit for the command deck. Drawing on a career defined by G-forces, tactical intercepts, and aerospace mechanics, he now writes high-octane Military Space Opera and Hard Sci-Fi where the physics matter just as much as the firepower.
He writes for readers who are tired of heroes surviving on plot armor. In a Vance novel, victory isn't handed down by destiny—it’s a math equation solved in the cold vacuum of deep space using orbital mechanics, fleet logistics, and kinetic impact. His flagship series, The Vanguard Calculus, blends the gritty realism of asymmetrical warfare with massive dreadnought fleets and high-stakes command strategy.
When he isn't plotting the collapse of galactic empires, K.R. can be found in his Pacific Northwest workshop tinkering with amateur robotics, studying AI architecture, and waiting for the inevitable machine uprising.
He writes for readers who are tired of heroes surviving on plot armor. In a Vance novel, victory isn't handed down by destiny—it’s a math equation solved in the cold vacuum of deep space using orbital mechanics, fleet logistics, and kinetic impact. His flagship series, The Vanguard Calculus, blends the gritty realism of asymmetrical warfare with massive dreadnought fleets and high-stakes command strategy.
When he isn't plotting the collapse of galactic empires, K.R. can be found in his Pacific Northwest workshop tinkering with amateur robotics, studying AI architecture, and waiting for the inevitable machine uprising.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
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July 16, 2026Review of The Proxy War by K.R.Vance
In this episode Elias Thorne strikes a major blow against the oligarchs who not only banished him to the oldest ship available but are defrauding the galaxy by running a fake war with a rival confederation. In the process he reveals the corruption at the heart of the galaxy and causes the destruction of two large fleets of warships.
The overall theme of this series is that analogue technology, represented by the ageing Aegis space ship, can, in the right hands, defeat the most sophisticated digital technology. Thorne’s skill with computing trajectories in his head is a major part of of overcoming overwhelming odds.
As with the previous episodes the story moves fast with threats to Thorne, his crew and the space ship. The analogue technology used is not explained in detail, which is a good thing. The crew and the ship suffer incredible damage to an extend that borders on hard to believe but does not distract this reader. I found it surprising that revealing the deception played on the two fleets did not cause an immediate mutiny but instead turned the feets into a powder keg of distrust
In this episode the character of Jax begins to develop, and Thorne, having been banished for saving a few thousand lives, loses some of his moral status, at least in Jax’s eyes. by destroying the two fleets, and seems to be becoming what he is fighting. Hopefully he will redeem himself in future episodes. Also at the moment his character needs more development: he comes across as someehat robotic.
This is a good book for fans of fast paced space operas. The series is beginning to develop the characters alongside the action. I found it impossible to put down, which cost me a good noghts sleep.
In this episode Elias Thorne strikes a major blow against the oligarchs who not only banished him to the oldest ship available but are defrauding the galaxy by running a fake war with a rival confederation. In the process he reveals the corruption at the heart of the galaxy and causes the destruction of two large fleets of warships.
The overall theme of this series is that analogue technology, represented by the ageing Aegis space ship, can, in the right hands, defeat the most sophisticated digital technology. Thorne’s skill with computing trajectories in his head is a major part of of overcoming overwhelming odds.
As with the previous episodes the story moves fast with threats to Thorne, his crew and the space ship. The analogue technology used is not explained in detail, which is a good thing. The crew and the ship suffer incredible damage to an extend that borders on hard to believe but does not distract this reader. I found it surprising that revealing the deception played on the two fleets did not cause an immediate mutiny but instead turned the feets into a powder keg of distrust
In this episode the character of Jax begins to develop, and Thorne, having been banished for saving a few thousand lives, loses some of his moral status, at least in Jax’s eyes. by destroying the two fleets, and seems to be becoming what he is fighting. Hopefully he will redeem himself in future episodes. Also at the moment his character needs more development: he comes across as someehat robotic.
This is a good book for fans of fast paced space operas. The series is beginning to develop the characters alongside the action. I found it impossible to put down, which cost me a good noghts sleep.
July 6, 2026
Intense High Action Sc-Fi
If you are a fan of fast pasted action. Intense space combat, and a well fleshed out world this is a great book. I found the world to be well built out and described by the author. The action was fast paced with wonderfully fleshed out space combat. I’m not usually a card of hard sci-fi but found this to be a great book to add to my library. The only issue I had was sometimes the author gave me too much info and did not allow me to use my imagination to fill in blanks.
If you are a fan of fast pasted action. Intense space combat, and a well fleshed out world this is a great book. I found the world to be well built out and described by the author. The action was fast paced with wonderfully fleshed out space combat. I’m not usually a card of hard sci-fi but found this to be a great book to add to my library. The only issue I had was sometimes the author gave me too much info and did not allow me to use my imagination to fill in blanks.
July 15, 2026
A Brutal, High-Intensity Space Thriller
I liked how the story opens with the crippled Aegis making a desperate docking at Erebus while the deafened Commander Thorne calculates every move through vibration and pain. Jax’s brutal treatment and determination to rebuild the ship add real grit, while the bazaar chase keeps the momentum high. The prose can become overly graphic and metaphor-heavy, but the damaged crew, hard-science problem-solving, and grim industrial world kept me engaged.
I liked how the story opens with the crippled Aegis making a desperate docking at Erebus while the deafened Commander Thorne calculates every move through vibration and pain. Jax’s brutal treatment and determination to rebuild the ship add real grit, while the bazaar chase keeps the momentum high. The prose can become overly graphic and metaphor-heavy, but the damaged crew, hard-science problem-solving, and grim industrial world kept me engaged.
July 22, 2026
I give up
Excellent story line diminished with far too much pain as information, fingers/faces/arms/etc freezing, torn, bleeding, boiling inguries, blunt trauma events, non-functional limbs, scalded/frostbit/torn.burned/fused skin, flesh, arms, faces, legs, working through broken bones, surviving repeated massive g forces, and on and on. 'll not be reading the next book in the series. I'm done.
Excellent story line diminished with far too much pain as information, fingers/faces/arms/etc freezing, torn, bleeding, boiling inguries, blunt trauma events, non-functional limbs, scalded/frostbit/torn.burned/fused skin, flesh, arms, faces, legs, working through broken bones, surviving repeated massive g forces, and on and on. 'll not be reading the next book in the series. I'm done.
September 1, 2026
Excellent sequel.
Excellent sequel with interesting twists. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Now looking forwards to the next n?book in the series.
Excellent sequel with interesting twists. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Now looking forwards to the next n?book in the series.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews