After Marine Warrant Officer Jacob Merin all but lost his right arm during an extraction in the Congo he found himself in the civilian sector without many civilian abilities. He was one of the best of the best, Marine Force Recon. He never imagined becoming a body guard would lead him to becoming the protector of humanities last best hope in North America. Chosen to head up security at Lazerath Project Untied States number 4 but Jacob wakes up from stasis to find the majority of the people...

Set many thousands of years in the future Mankind now inhabits more than one hundred and fifty thousand planets. The planets have long been overcrowded and Man needs to expand to survive. Following the earlier great explorations of thousands of years ago when civilisation was prosperous the Starship Stinedern searches for the descendants of those great explorers – if any remain.

Hank Beveridge and Lieutenant Newton Shapiro are a couple of nice guys whose worlds just happen to collide. Hank's getting up in years and Newton has his first independent field command. On Third World, women of marrying age are scarce as hen's teeth. Hank's still looking though. Newton has a job to do, no matter who gets hurt. The Empire is a long ways away, but the locals are at least peaceable.

The Phelestra Contract - a novelette. Frankie is a shady but likeable "Fixer" who accepts highly dangerous contracts. In the Phelestra Contract he is hired undercover by the Phelestran government to prevent a dangerous criminal from destroying the planet's dubious economy. When Frankie arrives on Phelestra he gets a few surprises, but he has a few up his sleeve himself!

It was a leap of faith every time. The odds were always against them. Dropping into a deep-penetration strategic reconnaissance mission from near space takes a strong personality. Angela Yancey needs to get through to Jason Bridger before he kills them both. A short story.

Willa Harmon can't seem to catch a break. Her ex-girlfriend is a freakin' psycho who just wants to pull Willa back into her web of needfulness. Willa doesn’t need the distraction, her life is complicated enough.Using security work as a cover to keep her real job secret, Willa falls in on a gang of drug smugglers. Which leads to the Navy’s rescuing and resuscitating her. Her use of an illegal gun to signal for help, destroys a multi billion dollar launch system, putting her in the F...

On Aurora, humanity's final outpost is heading for disasterIn 2080, the starship Exodus left Earth, carrying some 1600 people, to give humanity a second chance. Now, in 2245, the colonists are trying to build a future on distant Aurora. But the doomed world that sent them on their long voyage had turned authoritarian and repressive, leading a small group to form a plan to let those sent on the Exodus choose a different path.While Kenneth Taylor struggles to accept his self-...

This collection features 10 stories from Scott Seldon's Galactic Confederation Universe. Smuggler Tramp Darvon makes a run through a dangerous stellar nursery. Smuggler Hazdon Brenker is tricked into doing a job by a girl out for revenge. Customs Marine Sgt. Rolfel is tested to see if he has what it takes to be promoted to commander and then he and his best friend take a leisure cruise that turns out to be more business than pleasure. Trader Alluren Beldaras makes a normal delivery, but en...

When geophysics instructor and former CIA operative Alex Cave responds to a mysterious mayday in Puget Sound, he boards an oil tanker—only to find it empty and abandoned. Hours later, the bodies of the crew appear frozen to death on a mountain 150 miles away.As more tankers vanish and an Alaska pipeline station mysteriously fails, Alex realizes these events are connected by an unseen force… one capable of draining millions of barrels of crude oil in minutes and lea...

FROM PALACE . . . Dennis flees the crystal walls of Emath when he learns the truth behind the city his father rules.TO WILDERNESS . . . The jungle enfolds him, tests his sword arm with monsters and his courage with nightmares more terrible than any monster.FROM LOVE . . . Sword and spirit can win Dennis a princess--TO BLACKEST WIZARDRY . . . But he can overcome the final evil only at the risk of all he has become--and his soul besides.At the publisher's requ...

Food doesn't grow easily on New Earth. Much of it arrives on massive supply ships and when one goes missing, the planet’s few thousand inhabitants are in grave peril. Chloe Meeks, a beautiful and gentle soul longing for a human utopia, is a rookie space pilot who doubts her abilities. Putting those insecurities aside, she joins her stern British captain Gordon and Nix, a wise-cracking young man vying for her affections, to find the lost craft. Dodging asteroids and other dangers in a ricke...

Volume I of IV.At exactly midnight on December 31, 2012, every electronic device made in China for the last 30 years stops working.From the U.S. electrical grid and all its back-ups, engine control-management systems, early warning systems on U.S. satellites, every motor vehicle, aircraft and ship made after 1985, to even simple memory chips inside children's teddy bears—every electronic fuse, resistor, or connector that was "Made in China" becomes dormant… forever.S...