After being infected with nanites from a dead Pax Romana super-soldier, Genevieve should have died, like every other infected civilian. Instead she survived, remade in the image of the so-called Installs. Unable to truly trust her any longer, her people send her deep into Pax Romana space with a mission: upload a virus to destroy the Install reserves.When she arrives, she finds not the reserves but the self-destructive dregs of the program, the few who didn't die on the battlefield...

Fairy tales are as old as time, and yet…In SHATTERING THE GLASS SLIPPER, fifteen talented authors take on these age-old tales and transform them into bold and brave new visions. Discover worlds where the Seattle Space Needle acts as Rapunzel’s tower; where seven princesses plot their own rescue from the fae; where a magic mirror is connected to an app on your phone…and shows you more than you may be able to handle. Get hired by a giant to climb beanstalks, each with its own problem...

Chloe thought pilot training and its accompanying implant would allow her to support her extended family in the Free Trade Zone; instead, she accidentally receives an experimental hijacking implant. Once people discover she can control others through their implants, nowhere is safe for her. From a Pax Romana research facility to a Libertad Fransa pirate ship, everyone wants to either drug her into submission or use her hijacking abilities for their own gain. With the help of her few allies...

Nanite and implant internal technology began in the Pax Romana planetary empire's army, but it hasn't stayed there. Across four novellas and more than a century, two natives of the conquered planet Idyll must each contend with technological abilities thrust upon them without their consent.Genevieve, living in a time of war on her planet, was infected with nanites from a dying super-soldier—nanites that remade her in the image of those super-soldiers. Sienna, caught between the now-...

A ship lost with all hands on icy Titan. A dying woman’s soul linked with the fate of an interstellar vessel. A wrecked ferry possessed by the ruin-demon who grounded her. A haunted space cruiser of legend again terrorizing those who travel among the stars. A pirate-ravaged frigate concealing magical secrets that can doom the wicked, or redeem the worthy. An inexplicably empty cruiser arriving at a space station amid the panic of a system-wide pandemic.There is an allure to the gho...

In Pure Motives, Chloe and her partner, Logan, escaped the authorities from two planetary empires willing to kill her to neutralize her hijacking implant, which allows her to control others through their own implants. Now their temporary refuge has been shattered—criminals known as the Hawks have kidnapped Logan and will kill him unless Chloe hijacks a true AI ship and uses her to touch off an inter-empire war. Chloe plays along while her allies work to rescue Logan, but between a...

Genevieve has been working for nine years to remove the nanites from retired Pax Romana military Installs and accidentally infected civilians like herself, to allow them to return to a normal life. When unaltered soldiers show up at her door, she assumes they're here about the trial her team buried: burnout did remove the nanites, but it also caused unimaginable pain, driving all those it reached to suicide.Instead, the soldiers accuse her of working for the resistance on her home ...

Over a century after the events of Dirty Burnout led to the founding of the Amsterdam Institute to help those struggling with the spread of internal-technology, a new adventure begins.After a year as a civilian mistakenly held by the LSF planetary alliance in a POW camp, Sienna has been offered a chance at freedom, but one that comes at a staggering price. LSF shoved a dead Pax Romana spy's implant into her head and sent her in place of that spy in a prisoner exchange. Now...

Artist Sienna thought she and her partner, Cyperus, had escaped the war between the LSF planetary alliance and the Pax Romana empire, but now a plea from their friends might draw them back in.Gentiana arrives, bringing with her the sentient AI Penstemon. They need Cyperus's help to find Pen's daughter: a non-sentient copy of Pen made without the AI's consent and stolen by LSF. Cyperus, restless in retirement, jumps at the chance to return to intelligence work and rescue her, leavin...

Patrick Laycal loves his family above all else, but he needs time off work from ruling over stubborn Texans. Rather than rest and relax, Pat does what he does best, sowing the seeds of chaos and progress wherever he goes.His trip to purchase land and cattle for his projects blooms into an opportunity to forever change the Royal States, if he can somehow cultivate the child best suited to become next King of Texas—and save his stubborn daughter from the consequences of her choices.

Nothing was worse than waking up as a squirrel. Not knowing where she is, why she's a squirrel, and why she should be in Georgia comes a close second.Vicky does know several important things. First, she's not supposed to be a squirrel. Second, two-legger males are intriguing creatures. Third, she likes one particular two-legger male more than the others, and she means to keep him.Finding her true self is only the beginning. Vicky must hunt those who have taken her friends a...

Coraline Patten enjoys nothing more than facing new challenges, but when she's asked to evaluate Moonriver's ruling faction, she worries she's bitten off more than she can chew.Allasandro Stephans has reigned since she'd been a child, unwavering in his dedication to Moonriver. His heir, Calden, has supported him every step of the way. Together, the shapeshifting widower and his son appear to be the perfect men for the job of preserving and protecting their home.When Moonriv...