Military Adventure Fiction

The best-selling Extinction Cycle series by Nicholas Sansbury Smith first introduced listeners to a world ravaged by an engineered virus that turned men into monsters. Humanity's only hope was not a cure, but another bioweapon. When deployed it killed 90 percent of the infected, but the remaining 10 percent transformed into even more terrifying creatures called Variants. Here's a collection of Extinction Cycle short stories that explore the human spirit and the fight for survival in the face of overwhelming odds from some of the leading voices in the post-apocalyptic genre.

In the year AD 3000, Earth is a dystopian wasteland, plundered of its natural resources by alien conquerors known as Psychlos. Fewer than 35,000 humans survive in a handful of communities scattered across the face of a post-apocalyptic Earth. From the ashes of humanity rises a young hero, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler. Setting off on an initial quest to discover a hidden evil, Jonnie unlocks the mystery of humanity’s demise and unearths a crucial weakness in their oppressors.

The Great Angel, Sanguinius, lies slain at his brother's hand. Terra burns as reality itself unravels, and the greatest bastion of civilisation teeters on the brink of annihilation. Desperate defenders gather, banding against the rabid traitor hordes. The Hollow Mountain, host to the pilgrims of Euphrati Keeler, is one of the last redoubts held by the Dark Angels while the unclean host of Typhus lays siege. Malcador the Sigillite sits ablaze on the Golden Throne, trying to buy his master more time. But time is running out...

Special Forces soldier and medic Walter River would give anything to snatch more than a few seconds of down time to see if he can rattle the no-nonsense and incredibly hot Dr. Lloyd he's protecting, but dodging explosions, snipers, and student radicals who've unleashed a lethal bio-engineered microorganism have made that almost impossible. Maybe he'll get a chance - if he can figure out how to keep them both alive.

People love easily. Look at most of your relatives or coworkers. How lovable are they? Really? Yet most have mates and children. The vast majority are still invited to family gatherings and their relatives will speak to them. Many have pets to which they are devoted. Some even call them their fur-babies. Is your dog or cat or parakeet property or family? Not in law but in your heart? Can a pet really love you back? Or is it a different affection? Are you not kind to those who feed and shelter you? But what if your dog could talk back? Would your cat speak to you kindly?

It is fall. CIA analyst Jack Ryan, historian and former Marine, is vacationing in London with his wife and young daughter. Suddenly, right before his eyes, a terrorist group launches its deadly attack. Instinctively, he dives forward to break it up, and is shot. It is not until he wakes up in the hospital that he learns whose lives he has saved - the Duke and Duchess of Kent.

Lieutenant Danny Jabo is a young officer onboard the USS Alabama, a Trident submarine. When a madman tries to stop the ship's vital mission, it's up to Danny and the rest of the heroic crew to stop him.

This fourth adventure finds Will Burrows deep in the “land of the second sun”, reunited with his long-lost father. While Will attempts to decode the cryptic messages scrawled across the land’s three mysterious temples, an army of darkness begins its march. And all the while, the Rebeccas continue their relentless pursuit of Will, determined to destroy him once and for all.

United Nations Special Operations Command sent an elite expeditionary force of soldiers and pilots out on a simple recon mission, and somehow along the way they sparked an alien civil war. Now the not-at-all-merry band of pirates is in desperate trouble, again. Their stolen alien starship is falling apart, thousands of light years from home. The ancient alien AI they nicknamed Skippy is apparently dead, and even if they can by some miracle revive him, he might never be the same.

For two years, the Castle Federation and the Alliance of Free Stars have stood against Marshal James Walkingstick of the Terran Commonwealth and his mission of conquest. Battles have been won and lost, worlds have died, and soldiers like Admiral Kyle Roberts have been forged on the anvil of war. But the Alliance cannot win. The Commonwealth has more worlds, more ships, more soldiers. They claim their victory is inevitable. That history is on their side. Refusing to accept the Commonwealth's future, the Alliance embarks on a do-or-die mission to end the war in one strike.

Rugged, skilled, and hard-bodied, Jack King's whole life was the Marines until an injury left him discharged from active duty. But he finds a new purpose when he's recruited by a special unit that employs ex-military to do very special jobs. Yet he's not impressed when his first assignment is babysitting the pretty, perfect daughter of a politician - especially when she's far from the angel she appears to be....

Reidon Ward will become a god. He doesn't know it yet, of course. Reidon was born weak, sickly, and small. Afflicted with a painful disease and abandoned by his parents because of it, he has had to fight tooth and nail for every minor advantage life has allowed him. However, his perseverance has not gone unnoticed, and when the most powerful artificial intelligence in human history takes an interest in him, things began to change quickly.

Two centuries ago, the First Expansionary Fleet set off to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, hoping to explore, colonize, and conquer new worlds in the name of humanity. But when the fleet was violently and unexpectedly thrown off course, the colonists found themselves trapped in an unexplored region of the galaxy—and caught right in the middle of a bloody interstellar war. Now, after generations of relentless fighting, a tentative truce has finally ushered in an era of growth and prosperity.

It's kill or be killed in the space penitentiary that houses the galaxy’s worst criminals, where convicts face off in gladiatorial combat while an underworld gambling empire reaps the profits of the illicit blood sport. But the newest contender in this savage arena, as demonic to behold as he is deadly to challenge, is fighting for more than just survival. His do-or-die mission, for the dark masters he serves, is to capture the ultimate weapon: an object that will enable the Sith to conquer the galaxy.

While the crew of the UN Expeditionary Force's pirate starship Flying Dutchman are enjoying a luxury vacation cruise (not!), UNEF troops are still stranded on an alien-controlled planet. Major Emily Perkins and her team are busy picking up the pieces, and it's not easy, because there is trouble on Paradise...

Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr was a Confederation Marine's marine. She'd survived more deadly encounters---and kept more of her officers and enlistees alive---than anyone in the Corps, and she was determined to keep that record intact. But since her last mission, she'd been sidelined into endless briefings and debriefings with no end in sight. So, of course, she'd jumped at the chance to go to Crucible---the Marine Corps training planet---as a temporary aide to Major Svensson.

Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr is a Confederation Marine's marine. She has survived more deadly encounters---and kept more of her officers and enlistees alive---than anyone else in the Corps. Unexpectedly pulled from battle, Torin finds herself in an underground POW camp that shouldn't exist, where her fellow marine prisoners seem to have lost all will to escape.

The Blood Angels Chapter of Space Marines is under threat. Having obliterated all human life in the Red Scar region of space, the largest tendril of Hivefleet Leviathan ever seen in the Imperium has converged and is making relentlessly for Baal. To face this awesome foe, Commander Dante has called upon the Successor Chapters of the ancient Ninth Legion. The Sons of Sanguinius gather in numbers not seen since the dark days of the Horus Heresy.

In the serene backdrop of New Hampshire's Franconia Notch, Micah Taylor, an ex-Army Ranger, finds solace with his loyal golden retriever, Grover. Their peaceful existence is suddenly shattered when a first date with his old friend, Jess Bender, takes an unexpected turn. Bright lights descend from the sky, leading them into the dark woods and a shocking discovery: the Kylonari, an advanced alien species with a special connection to Micah, here on a quest to find "The Lost Tribe"—a colony that vanished millennia ago.

After a long and gruelling conflict, the traitors at last close upon Terra. But time is dwindling for an attack. Both Guilliman and the Lion are returning with all haste, and their armies could turn the tide. The hosts of the Warmaster must unite, for only then can they attack the Throneworld itself. While Mortarion is sent on ahead as the fleet’s vanguard, it falls to Lorgar and Perturabo to marshal Fulgrim and Angron, both now elevated to daemonhood and perhaps beyond even the will of the Warmaster to command.