Showing results by author "Jay Allan" in All Categories

Erik Cain joined the marines to get off death row. The deal was simple; enlist to fight in space and he would be pardoned for all his crimes. In the 23rd Century, assault troops go to war wearing AI-assisted, nuclear-powered armor, but it is still men and blood that win battles. From one brutal campaign to the next, Erik and his comrades fight an increasingly desperate war over the resource rich colony worlds that have become vital to the economies of Earth's exhausted and despotic Superpowers.

The war is over, but the struggle continues. Tyler Barron and his spacers have set out into the unknown, deep into the Badlands, seeking to discover the empire’s old tech and the secrets of its tortured history before Gaston Villieneuve and the resurgent Union can beat them to it. The White Fleet is a vast force, powerful, and crewed by the toughest veterans from the war. Barron and his people know the future of the Confederation, even its survival, depends on recovering the scientific secrets of the empire before the enemy can do the same.

The White Fleet had been an expression of optimism, a grand expedition to explore the vast reaches of the long-dead empire. Tasked to uncover the secrets of the devastating Cataclysm and to seek and recover the advanced ancient technology that humanity had once possessed, it found something else instead. A new enemy. A vast domain, one with advanced technology, massive fleets, and a genetically-ordered society and hierarchy it intends to impose on all humanity everywhere. The Hegemony is like nothing Tyler Barron and his comrades have ever encountered - but the veteran admiral must find a way to fight the far superior enemy....

Smuggler and mercenary Arkarin Blackhawk and the crew of the ship Wolf's Claw are freelance adventurers who live on the fringe of human society in the Far Stars. A veteran fighter as deadly with a blade as he is with a gun, Blackhawk is a man haunted by a dark past. Even his cynicism cannot banish the guilt and pain that threaten his sanity.

Successfully completing their mission to rescue Marshal Augustin Lucerne's daughter, Astra, the crew of the Wolf's Claw are enjoying some well-deserved rest - all, that is, except Blackhawk. The space gun for hire cannot escape Lucerne's relentless pleas for help against growing imperial control in the Far Stars. While Blackhawk deeply respects his friend, he fears that the power Lucerne offers will lead him back to his old dark ways.

The Triumvirate. Three clones of Gavin Stark who survived their evil master's destruction. Now they have cheated death again, downloading their minds into an alien intelligence, a relic of the First Imperium. For three decades they have worked, silently, diligently, preparing their forces for the day that would launch the final assault.

Gavin Stark, the former head of Alliance Intelligence, and the bitter nemesis of the Marine Corps, has made his bid for power. His manufactured clone soldiers, Shadow Legions have seized control of dozens of colony worlds, imposing his brutal rule over millions of colonists. His plan is no less than to subjugate all mankind under his iron fist. On key colony worlds, Erik Cain and the remnants of the shattered Marines struggle against Stark's vast armies...the only hope of turning back the tide of destruction and despair threatening to engulf all mankind.

When the Far Stars came under imperial attack, Astra Lucerne - the daughter and successor of the Far Stars’ greatest conqueror - Marshal Augustin Lucerne - rallied her father’s confederation forces to defend their worlds. They were joined in the fight by former imperial general Arkarin Blackhawk, a warrior whose skills and brutality made him infamous, and who has, for two decades, sought the redemption he knows is unreachable.

The war with the First Imperium is over, and Grand Fleet is limping home from the frontier. Erik Cain, Augustus Garret, and the rest of the high command are grimly satisfied that humanity has been saved from the First Imperium menace. There is no joy, however…no elation at the “victory.” The losses this time were too heavy…too personal…to bear. They did what had to be done to drive back the enemy and save the human worlds from certain destruction. Now they were left to find a way to live with the gut wrenching decisions that victory had required.

The combined forces of humanity have beaten back the First Imperium invasion. For the first time, the enemy has been defeated in battle. The cost was high in blood and suffering, but the Line held. The heart of human-occupied space has been saved from annihilation. For now. There is little time for the victorious warriors to savor their triumph or mourn their dead. The First Imperium has been driven back, but it has not been defeated. No one expects the fruits of victory to be more than a brief respite.

The Far Stars stands on the edge of a precipice. The forces of Governor Vos have surged forth, conquering worlds and imposing the emperor's brutal rule over millions. Only one thing stands in the way of total victory: Marshal Augustin Lucerne and his newly created Confederation. Vos has a simple plan: assassinate the marshal and manipulate his generals to fight over his legacy, destroying each other in the process.

The Superpowers of Earth have fought their final war, leaving Earth a devastated ruin, populated only by scattered groups of survivors living in primitive squalor. Out in space, however, humanity moves forward, and the former colonies of Earth's dead nations are now free from the yoke of the despotic governments that had long ruled over them. For many, it is their first taste of liberty.

Earth has been a scarred ruin for three decades, its scattered people struggling to survive amid the poisoned and radioactive wreckage of the final war between its despotic superpowers. While the people of Earth struggle to survive, out on the frontier, on a thousand worlds, mankind thrives and grows, building new civilizations and looking boldly to the future. But man has never been able to live in peace, and even Earth's sad fate has failed to slow the call to war.

Erik Cain is the hero of the Marine Corps, a celebrated warrior who has led his grim veterans into every war the Alliance and mankind have faced. But now he has left the Corps, driven to near madness by an overwhelming need for vengeance. He has sworn to kill Gavin Stark, the madman responsible for his mentor’s death and, with a small band of dedicated followers, he is pursuing his prey across occupied space.

The Third Frontier War is over, and the Western Alliance is triumphant. All across human-occupied space, colony worlds celebrate the coming of peace. But peace is an elusive dream, and more trouble is brewing. The war was expensive, and the economies of the Superpowers, always fragile, are on the verge of total collapse. The Directorate, the shadowy intelligence organization that has become the true power behind the Alliance government, plans to strip the colonies bare to pay the costs of war.

Directed by the maniacal Regent, the enemy pressed forward with one goal - the destruction of mankind. The Superpowers of Earth, enemies for over a century, have banded together to face the threat from outside, and their combined forces have fought delaying actions to buy time. But now the Rim has fallen, and the heart of human space lies before the invaders. On three worlds, mankind will make its stand, and all the power Earth and its colonies can muster has been gathered there.

The Third Frontier War is raging, and all across human-occupied space worlds are burning. Massive fleets struggle for dominance and kilometer-long war ships exchange thermonuclear barrages. Battered in the early years of the war, the Western Alliance is resurgent. The brilliant Admiral Augustus Garret leads the Alliance fleet from victory to victory, taking the war to the very heart of the enemy empires.

The Alliance and its colonies have called a truce and signed the Confederation Agreement, providing the frontier worlds with guarantees of self-government. No one expects the deal to last, and both sides are preparing for the next showdown. But from the depths of space another challenge is coming, one that will endanger the very survival of mankind and force not just the Alliance and its colonies, but all of the Superpowers, to join forces or face annihilation.

Earth Two is a world beset by dangers, inside and out. Its genetic groupings, the cloned “Tanks”, the “Natural Borns”, and the hybrid “Mules” exist uneasily, each wary of the others, even as they rally to face the deadly threat of the First Imperium’s robot warriors. President Max Harmon and his inner circle have played an elaborate game of chess for 12 years, a deadly battle of wits with the genocidal alien intelligence known as the Regent. They have moved fleets, spread deceptions, built decoy planets...all to hide Earth Two’s location, to protect it from the deadly onslaught of the enemy.

A battered group of human ships, fighting for survival, fleeing deeper into the far unknown, pursued by the deadly forces of the genocidal artificial intelligence known as the Regent. A legendary commander, the man who has saved his people time and time again, struggling to lead the fleet ever forward, fighting through every attack the enemy throws at them.