Showing results by author "Jay Allan" in All Categories

The Confederation has fought three wars against the forces of the totalitarian Union. Three generations of its warriors have gone off to war, held the line against the larger, more powerful enemy. Now the fourth conflict is imminent, and the Confederation's navy is on alert, positioned behind the frontier, waiting for the attack it knows is coming.

Blackhawk: a wanderer, a man running from a dark and sinister past. A genetically-engineered warrior, a capable and accomplished killer, he is also a lost soul, a man who has fled to the deepest reaches of space seeking his true identity. The Far Stars: the farthest extent of human habitation in the galaxy, a sector of a hundred inhabited worlds, it is a dangerous expanse full of pirates, mercenaries, and cutthroats.

Tyler Barron is about to lead his fleet into a trap. He is sure the enemy is laying in wait, but he has no choice. After four years of unexpected calm along the front line, the Senate and the Hegemonic Council are demanding action, and the Pact’s commanding admiral has no choice but to set out on a mission to liberate the enemy-held regions of the Hegemony. While Tyler prepares for an offensive he believes can only end in disaster, Andi Lafarge is preparing to continue her quest for the mysterious weapon the doomed empire used to defeat the Highborn centuries before.

Tyler Barron and his associates are divided, split between two courses of action. Barron doesn't believe in the desperate plan to eradicate the Highborn, the strange virus that has been created for that purpose, but may or may not be the exact formula used by the empire 300 years ago. There are too many possible problems...a small difference in the virus, a cure created by the enemy...for him to accept the plan. Barron commits instead to a traditional defense, even though he knows the chances of ultimate success are almost zero.

The pulsar...an ancient weapon of unimaginable power, one that threatens the Confederation with total destruction. The Union is preparing for the final invasion, one that cannot fail with the great artifact at the head of their fleet. The clock is ticking quickly toward midnight. There is a chance to avoid annihilation, a small one. The Confederation has its own ancient device recovered from the Badlands, a stealth generator. It is not as powerful as the pulsar, but it just may be enough.

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 human powers have been pushed to the brink, battered, and almost destroyed. The virus they have invented and deployed, their sole possibility for victory, seems to be too little, too late. Its usage has only spurred the enemy to quicker action, to finish the war before they have to deal with its effects. But the humans do not know that the Highborn are faced on another front, by a race they know little about but have battled for two centuries.

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.

The warrior culture of the Alliance has fragmented, and comrade fights comrade, brother kills brother. The Red Alliance forces, backed by the Union and its propaganda machine, have the advantage in numbers and position, and they are pushing forward, driving relentlessly toward the final attack. The Gray Alliance forces are weaker, trapped in the great Sentinel-2 fortress where they've established their headquarters. Their enemies have the larger fleets and armies, and control of the homeworld...but the Grays have Tyler Barron and Dauntless.

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.

Admiral Tyler Barron and the Confederation navy face a new threat, darker and deadlier than any that have come before. The Confederation has just concluded its war with the Hegemony, but now that power, so long the hated enemy, is calling for help, for the Confederation to join it to face a deadly invasion, one likely to subjugate all humanity. Barron must overcome his own resentments, and the resistance of the Senate, and find a way to lead his forces into battle once more. The odds are long, but the stakes couldn’t be higher, no less than a choice between survival and freedom.

The Confederation and its allies have won their first victory, retaking their capital from the forces of the Hegemony. But the enemy is not beaten, far from it, and they are back, with an unstoppable weapon, a vast superbattleship, a deadly hybrid of imperial and Hegemony technology, called the Colossus. The great ship is enormously powerful, nearly unstoppable, and in its armored depths it hides a secret, another Hegemony weapon, one that will change the dynamic of the entire war.

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 mysterious enemy has come, and Tyler Barron and his allies prepare for the final battle, the desperate struggle to save the Rim. Barron’s spacers are ready to fight, as always, but this time they know little of the enemy, and they face technology far beyond their own. They will fight to the end if necessary, battle with their final breaths to hold back the deadly enemy. They will stand alongside their old enemies, the Hegemony, united for one massive battle, one all out effort to stop the Highborn.

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 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.

Hugh McDaniel lives in Queens, New York. He's a genius, and he has been struggling to pick one area to focus his life’s work on. His brother and best friend, Travis, is a marine officer. They get along very well, despite their differences. When aliens suddenly invade and destroy their entire culture, they are forced to struggle together in the ruins. At first they just tried to survive; to collect food, medicine, weapons, and to find other survivors. But now, they've set their sights higher: on resistance and reclaiming their planet from invaders.

The Hegemony has launched the invasion Tyler Barron and his Confederation comrades have feared, and all the Rim is ablaze with the fires of war and destruction. The Hegemony has brought its vast fleets, its advanced technology, and its endless legions of grim cyborg warriors to impose its system of rigid genetic hierarchy over all humanity on the Rim. The Confederation fleet is outnumbered and outmatched, but they will fight nevertheless, struggling and dying to hold back the onslaught any way they can.