Daniel Arenson

In this anthology, you'll find 17 tales of conflict and heroism, exploration and discovery, endurance and triumph. Flee the apocalypse of modern-day Earth, fly a fighter in the cold emptiness of deep space, and find new life on the distant shores of an alien world....

The starship Freedom was once a mighty warship. Today, she's a tourist attraction. The space wars ended long ago. The Freedom is now a flying museum; the tourists love it. Then, on Christmas day, the aliens attack....

In the shadows, evil stirs. A race woven from arachnid and human DNA. They hunt like spiders. They think like men. They are the perfect killers. Like a virus, they invade the Freedom....

Earth burns. We call them the scum. They came from deep space. Creatures of claws and endless malice, they ravage the world. As the war flares, as cities crumble, Private Marco Emery....

Not long ago, the starship Freedom was a museum ship. A relic of a bygone era. A rusty old warship converted into a tourist trap. Then the aliens attacked. Now, once more, the legendary Freedom flies to war....

They came from deep space. They came to destroy us. Fifty years ago bloodthirsty aliens devastated the Earth. Most of humanity perished. We fell into darkness. But now we rise....

They called her a relic. They said she would never fly again. They said she was too old. Too large. A floating museum. But now the starship Freedom is the only hope of mankind....

We hide in shadows. Our planet is lost. We are the last humans, and we must go home. Two thousand years ago, aliens destroyed Earth. Our fleets shattered. Billions died. The last humans fled a burning planet, heading to the stars. Today we are still refugees....

Under the leadership of James “Bulldog” King, the Freedom won battle after battle. Yet now Freedom faces her most terrifying foe. Not an alien fleet. Not a charging armada. But one ship. Nobody knows who pilots this mechanical terror....

The Aeolians. The galaxy's most mysterious aliens. For a million years, they've been hiding. No human has ever seen them. Until now. James King, commander of the starship Freedom, travels to their secluded world. He seeks to forge an alliance. To learn from the Aeolians....

The basilisks, cruel alien serpents, attacked our world. They bombed us. Hunted us. Butchered us without pity. But now we will be the hunters. We will assemble a fleet. We will cross the vastness of space. And for the first time, we will strike the enemy on his own soil....

The final battle is here. The final showdown between man and monster. Years ago, the aliens hit us hard. Tentacled aliens. Bloodthirsty aliens. They burned our cities. Devoured our children. Conquered our world. It ends now. We lost in space. We lost on land. We lost our world.

Earth burns. After generations in exile, we returned to our long-lost planet. Scarred. Haunted. Survivors. We - the last humans - are finally home. But our enemies still crave our blood....

In 1944, a secret Nazi experiment split the universe in two. In our universe, we won. Hitler died. Freedom prevailed. But in a parallel universe, the Nazis discovered the atom bomb first... and conquered the world.

Dinosaurs. Majestic giants. They’ve captured our imagination for generations. On planet Mintari, they live again. Mintari is far from Earth. Wild. Pristine. A world where triceratops herd across grasslands, pterosaurs soar over golden mountains, and T-rexes prowl the misty forests....

It's all-out war. Our cities fall. Millions die. The scum, these cruel aliens from deep space, are determined to kill us all. So we must kill them. Humanity musters its greatest fleet....

The galaxy burns. The enemy, a race of alien scorpions, storms from star to star. Planets smolder in their wake. Across the galaxy, they hunt humans. Long ago, we humans had a planet of our own. Long ago, we could have resisted the scorpions. But today we are refugees....

They call themselves the next step in human evolution. But we call them "scummers." They are hybrids. Humans with alien DNA. They attacked us. They butchered us. Now we fight back. Under the leadership of Einav Ben-Ari, our brave soldiers fly to the scummer planet. To war.

They emerge from shadows. Hungry for flesh, they scurry forth. They are the marauders, the galaxy's deadliest predators. And they crave Earth....

The final battle is here. The final stand of the starship Freedom. The final hope for Earth. Two galactic civilizations face off....