Showing results by author "Vaughn Heppner" in All Categories

Earth becomes too hot for Jake Bayard. Too many shape-shifting aliens and people, including those on his own side, are trying to capture him in order to use his star-traveling abilities for their own greedy ends. Bayard flees to Kaldar, a world devastated by atomic war and lousy with mutated rat-men and the Dark Brotherhood. At first, he’s just trying to stay alive. Then, he uncovers a mystery, one that, incredible as it seems, reaches all the way back to Earth. It could mean the alien enslavement of everyone, which means that Bayard is fighting for more than just his own survival.

Alvor the Sleek—a Krekelen shape-shifter—hates Jake Bayard because the Galactic Marine slew the others of his plotting brood. Bayard wants to wring Alvor’s neck because the alien tricked him into teleporting to deadly Canopus instead of Saddoth to help his friend. Bayard’s teleportation opens the way for Alvor to reach Canopus so he can board an ancient, orbital sleeper ship and collect a cargo that should give the Krekelens ultimate victory everywhere.

A nuclear attack in the Persian Gulf wrongly implicates Jake Bayard. Everyone seems to be hunting for him. Bayard flees to Garm, an ice-age world full of sabertooths, dire wolves, mammoths, and Neanderthals. Unfortunately, Institute Homo habilises are also there: extraterrestrial, crafty, small, and deadly hominids. They've enslaved the Neanderthals to mine for dreaded alibite.

Imagine a ship the size of a planet. It has an atmosphere of methane, but there is no water. Mysterious and dark, it sails through a gateway, leaving a path open to the most implacable enemies that mankind and the aliens of the Milky Way Galaxy have ever face. Genetically tailored, symbiotic body armor protects the human commandos that are to be dropped on the metallic surface. A trooper in his armor, with surgically enhanced, neuro-fiber speed, is the deadliest grunt in the universe.

Long ago, the Builders ruled the stars, using a unique super-science to create marvels and wonders. But the Builders vanished - no one knows why - leaving many of their treasures hidden throughout the galaxy. Now, Captain Maddox and arrogant New Men learn about the fabled Library Planet. Legend holds it’s an ancient repository of Builder knowledge. The side that plunders the planetary vaults first will surely become the premier power in the Orion Spiral Arm.

In the fourth book of the Extinction Wars series, Abaddon commands a Karg-Jelk Super Fleet bent on annihilating humanity. He's the galaxy's most ruthless strategist wielding superior technology. That includes the perfect raid-ships, able to teleport anywhere at will. Humanity has Commander Creed, and he has his Assault Troopers. He's going to take the fight to the enemy. He's buying time, learning secrets and setting up for the greatest space battle in the Orion Arm.

We defeated the invading death machines. But at a devastating cost, with smoldering radioactive craters on Mars, shattered moon-domes around Jupiter and floating junk where Saturn's satellite cities used to orbit. We know more killing machines are coming and that the ultimate outcome seems hopeless. To win this war, we need more warships, more soldiers, and a way to take the fight to the enemy.

It came from deep space. It sent the signal. Now our computers are killing us, helping the enemy drive us into extinction. But some of us refuse to die. We fight back. We learn. Jon Hawkins revives from cryogenic sleep in a drifting SLN battleship. The crew is dead and the main computer has been destroyed. Jon is a soldier, the start of the resistance, the one man with the will to beat the alien death machines that have terminated 1000 races. This is our hour as we face the ultimate evil, the galactic destroyer of life.

Star Watch stands guard over the Commonwealth, having defeated New Men, massed Swarm fleets and android attackers. The victories have cost lost ships, slain crews, and smashed star systems. The accumulated damage means that Star Watch now strains to keep order as political instability, increased space piracy and rebellions stretch the stellar organization to the limit. Humanity desperately needs peace so Star Watch can rebuild and regroup. Unfortunately, Lord Drakos is searching the Beyond for a splinter Swarm colony world.

At Omicron 9, Professor Ludendorff unearthed artifacts of the fabled Old Ones. During a meeting in a subterranean chamber, a portal appeared and aliens attacked, perhaps to kidnap the professor or grab the artifacts. Maddox’s new intuitive sense gave him just enough warning. He saved Ludendorff and rushed into the portal to forestall any more assaults - and thus began his lonely odyssey from one strange place to another. Maddox eventually found a Builder potential unit, and they resolved to work together. But the unit betrayed him and then Victory.

Earth's last Assault Troopers become Star Vikings, raiding alien worlds. In the third book of the Extinction Wars series, the Emperor of the Lokhars declares a holy crusade against the last humans, promising to finish what he started. Years ago at his orders, the Lokhars nuked the Earth and sprayed it with a bio-terminator. Creed has begun raiding alien worlds for more starships and the tech needed to clean the radioactive Earth. But how can his handful of cruisers stop the approaching armada?

They came from the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina. First they studied us. Now they're among us, threatening human existence as they search for the Starcore, the greatest device of the lost Polarions. Logan is captured in the Nevada desert but escapes in Greenland. There he finds an extraterrestrial stealth ship, giving him the means to take the battle to the enemy.

Years ago, Main 54s brain-core had to flee his exploding planet-sized warship because of the treachery of Jon Hawkins. Later, Main 54 gained special processors, a new warship - something changed in him...greater clarity of purpose and superior combat skills. He has been taking over the AI Dominion around here ever since. Now, his brilliant calculations reveal it is time to destroy the Confederation with a super fleet. Jon is on a desperate mission in the void seeking clues for making the alien Subspace Teleport Device work.

Despite being all alone - the only one of his kind - Bast Banbeck has generously helped humanity time and again against the death machines, saving us from extinction. Years ago, Jon Hawkins promised Bast that he would hunt for and save the Sacerdotes in return. But the homesick Bast is losing hope, drowning his sorrows in extended drinking bouts. Now, Intelligence learns there are Sacerdote prisoners 162 light-years away. Jon leads the rescue operation, using the void to slip undetected into enemy territory.

Through desperate tactics and by deliberately keeping a low profile, we survived the machine assaults longer than any human or cybership thought possible. But now our luck has deserted us. The main A.I. brain-core has just given human extinction top priority. The robots are massing an armada to exterminate us. We’ve done what we could in expectation of this grim day, grabbing enemy factory planets to mass produce warships. And we found an ally, the Star Lords of Roke. But it’s just not enough, damn it.

Deep in the Indian Ocean, Dr. Selene Khan enters an underwater dome thousands of years old, one that is fully operational. She barely escapes to the surface, only to discover that her research vessel has vanished. Can she make it to shore 100 miles away? On the other side of the world, Agent Jack Elliot uncovers an impossible 900 grams of antimatter. The trail leads him to Egypt, betrayal, and a sinister brainwashing facility. There, in a desperate move, he rescues Dr. Selene Khan.

Marcus Cade had to cross 800 lonely light-years to Earth so he could begin searching for his beloved wife. But he was broke, and his spaceship badly needed an overhaul. So he traded his one-of-a-kind Gyroc rifle to a stingy and half-mad mechanic for a cheap fix and a Nion XT Navigator. When Cade went to sleep during the journey, the traitorous nav performed its secret function, bringing his ship to a rift, through a vortex and into the web of an extraterrestrial conspiracy.

In a desperate fight, we captured one of the machine empire’s factory planets. Can we now defeat an interstellar superpower that has exterminated thousands of sentient races across the galaxy and slaughtered billions of us in the solar system? Not bloody likely, but Captain Jon Hawkins is on a mission. Using new warships from the factory planet, he’s searching for alien allies, more battle stations to storm, and death machines to kill. He’s buying us time to turn the solar system into a fortress...if he can stay alive long enough.

We don't know when it happened. But somewhere an alien species built a strong artificial intelligence. The A.I. became independent, powerful, and it started killing biological infestations - life - any life, all life. It grew into a vast armada of death. Jon Hawkins and his team captured the A.I. destroyer invading the solar system. The genocidal assault should have been over, but it's not. An alien A.I. strand from the cybership survived in the distant Kuiper Belt. The strand has been multiplying and taking over by turning people into robots in order to build another supership.

Jon Hawkins and his crew are exhausted and homesick. They've destroyed the alien machine menace, going deep into the Kuiper Belt to annihilate the secret A.I. base. From out here, the sun looks like just another star. It's a lonely existence. They're ready to go home. What they don't know - what no one could - was that the A.I. destroyer was only a scout. More alien vessels drop out of hyperspace. This is an A.I. assault. The clock to human extinction has begun ticking.