After more than 20 years in special operations, USMC Gunnery Sergeant Wolf Mathison wasn’t looking forward to retirement when—implanted with an experimental artificial intelligence—he deployed on his last mission with a platoon of Marine Raiders being sent to the Jovian moon Europa. The USS Jefferson was destroyed en route, though, and only Mathison and three other marines survived. Trapped in stasis, they were hurled into the outer reaches of the solar system, where they wouldn’t be found for hundreds of years.

First countries, then worlds no longer kept large standing armies. They preferred to hire mercenaries, spending their citizens’ money rather than their citizens’ lives. Governments found it more cost-effective to keep their populations working, continuing to pay taxes rather than dying on some battlefield. War became a business. As in times of old, owning a mercenary company became a way for the ordinary man to become wealthy...if he survived.

Out of the blue, a young Space Fleet officer's dream becomes reality: He's made captain of a starship. Just in time for the return of humanity's most terrible enemy, after 50 years of peace. To survive against this enemy, Captain Tad Thatcher will have to do more than learn how to become an effective commander, or how to wrangle his wayward crew. He will need to reinvent space combat. From scratch.

U.S. Marine Tyson Gage has only one option left: to become a bounty hunter, then collect enough loot and upgrades to mount a rescue among the stars... Eight hundred years in the future. Joined by his dog and a beautiful woman who, despite their attraction, is on his last nerve, Gage must leave life on Earth behind for a universe of aliens, criminals, and hyperspace more deadly and awesome than he can imagine.

Kris Chambers is a nobody. A 24-year-old man with a dead-end job and no prospects—and, to top it off, a heart condition that forever keeps him on his toes—he spends his life trapped between apathy, self-doubt, and mortal fear. As he walks down an unfamiliar alleyway, he stumbles upon the lifeless body of a stranger. Unbeknownst to him, this grisly discovery marks the beginning of an entirely new chapter in his life. Upon mysteriously awakening in the hospital, he learns that his heart now functions flawlessly, and he feels… different.