Military Opera

Ties that bind...Danai Liao-Centrella is many things: Solaris gladiator; proud military commander; successful diplomat. All of those roles pale beneath perhaps the heaviest responsibility of anyone in the Capellan Confederation: To speak the truth to its ruler, Chancellor Daoshen Liao. He is the undeniable dictator of hundreds of worlds. Mighty armies move at his command. Billions of lives hang on his every decision. Against that, she must speak the truth. And the truth is, the war with House Davion must end. Because there is a greater danger looming.

Ero Bright’Lor, an outcast krey noble, has a mad plan to form an alliance from the outlaw clans. If he can overcome centuries of enmity, their combined might would threaten the entire fleet of the Krey Empire. But the cause needs a leader.

To annihilate the Galactic Union threat once and for all, Alliance Intelligence Director Aaron Hella needs the world-destroying firepower of the Ra weapons. Aligned with a sinister cabal of synthetic humans, he dispatches his most trusted operative—his own daughter—to steal two Ra warheads from a top-secret facility in the Planetary Federation. But the synths have other plans for the Ra weapons. To Hella's alarm, they fall into the hands of General Umez, a radical nationalist who launched a revolt against Alliance rule in the Tellus System.

Nothing brings change like war. A surge of new tech. New weapons. New tactics. To lead a crew to victory, a captain must understand change. He must understand command and that it is a test. A test most men fail. He must be brilliant. Resourceful. Every second. Of every day. And at night during scarce moments of rest, he must sleep the sleep of the righteous. The time has come for Commander Tad Thatcher to look in the mirror. The time has come to ask himself...am I that kind of man?

A rich Komarran merchant fleet has been impounded at Graf Station in distant Quaddiespace after a bloody incident involving the convoy's Barrayaran military escort. But Lord Miles Vorkosigan and his wife, Lady Ekaterin, have other things on their minds, such as getting home in time to attend the long-awaited births of their first children.

Working on opposite sides of the galaxy - one in deep space, the other undercover on an occupied planet - and haunted by personal ghosts, Captain Gareth Martinez and Lieutenant Lady Caroline Sula fight to save the Empire from the vicious alien Naxid. In a desperate, audacious bid to stop the Naxid fleet, Martinez makes a move that could win the war…and lose his career. Meanwhile, Sula’s guerilla tactics may not be enough to stop the Naxid - until she tries one deadly final gambit.

For Vicky Sandoval, home is wherever the she and Cam can make a life together, whether that’s back in the Commonwealth or right there in this strange new part of the galaxy. But the only way for any of them to find a home is to hunt down the mysterious Seekers, the faction of the ancient alien Predecessors who were tracking the source of the mindless Skrela war drones which had chased them off Earth tens of thousands of years ago. The Seekers have the gate and, just as importantly, they know where to find the demonic Skrela and put an end to them.

Samuel Rutger was out of options and out of luck. Broke and jobless, he turned to the only option that could provide for his wife and sick daughter. He became a mercenary. When he joined Breacher’s Berserkers, the galaxy’s most elite private military force, he was initially designated as a logistics specialist. Far from the front lines, Rutger never thought war would reach him, but when he is reassigned as a gunner on a grav-tank he finds himself at the tip of the spear in a bloody planetary civil war.

Commodore Straker's rebellion grows in strength - but his enemies are growing even faster. Faced with a dozen rebel planets in their territory, the Mutuality finally takes notice of the upstart known as the Liberator, and they gather a vast fleet to crush him. Preparing for a titanic interstellar battle, it's clear Straker has no chance. His tiny enclave of free planets can't survive the weight of 1000 worlds. His own officers realize this, and some of them begin to turn against him....

She longs to know what it’s like to live among normal humans and experience simple biological pleasures like consuming alcohol, kissing a boy, and — most importantly — eating chocolate. But her mother, the infamous astroshaman leader Kyla Moonrazor, is determined to get her back, even if it means sending a bounty hunter after her.

Beyond the confines of our small world, far from the glow of our star, lies a galaxy and universe much larger and more varied than anyone on Earth can possibly imagine. For the new NAC spacecraft Odyssey and her crew, the unimaginable facets of this untouched world are about to become reality. The Odyssey’s maiden voyage is an epic adventure destined to make history. Captain Eric Weston and his crew, pushing past the boundaries of security, encounter horrors, wonders, monsters, and people, all of which will test their resolve.

Two Syndicate World star systems have fallen prey to a mysterious fleet of warships - a fleet controlled entirely by artificial intelligence - that is now targeting Alliance space. The warships are no mystery to Geary. They were developed by his government to ensure security but malfunctioned. If the Syndics learn the truth, the war with the Alliance will resume with a vengeance.

There is a personal price to pay for having aligned with the wrong side in a reckless war. For Aden Jansen it's the need to adopt a new identity while keeping his past hidden. Now he's integrated himself aboard the Zephyr, a merchant ship smuggling critical goods through dangerous space. But danger is imminent on planet Gretia, as well. Under occupation, torn between postwar reformers and loyalists, it's a polestar for civil unrest.

In the wilds of a jungle planet, the Legion fights in brutal combat as Republic marines fly their SLICS from one tragedy to the next. H292, a repurposed warbot, shows the heart of a hero as he wades into the battle not to destroy - but to save.

This collection includes Valdar's Hammer and The Beast of Eridu, books three and four of the Ember War universe. War has come to Syracuse, and only one team of Terran Strike Marines can save the planet in Valdar's Hammer. In The Beast of Eridu, an ancient beast awakens, and only Lieutenant Hoffman and his Strike Marines can put it down.

In the wake of the Solar Union’s stunning victory over the Tokomak - the masters of the galactic community - humanity has been invited to send a diplomatic mission to the Kingdom of Harmonious Order, one of the oldest and most significant races in known space. It is an opportunity that cannot be missed, a chance to forge ties with a powerful ally. And so a lone starship is dispatched to the galactic core to open discussions. But when that starship runs into a deadly trap, she and her crew must battle their way home before they are merely the first casualties in a renewed war.

Avalon was the flagship of the Castle Federation in the last war, now 20 years past. The first of the deep space carriers, no other warship in the fleet holds as many honors or has recorded as many kills. No other warship in the fleet is as old. Accepting the inevitable, the Federation Space Navy has decided to refit her and send her on a tour of the frontier, showing the flag to their allies and enemies as a reminder of her glory - and then decommission her for good.

With the threat of Twain defeated, something strange is happening at the edge of known space. Ships are disappearing without a trace, and Hank's concerns are being dismissed as paranoia. But when an entire colony vanishes overnight, he knows he has to act. The problem is, no one wants to hear about a new threat so soon after the last war. Working with his closest allies, Hank begins to uncover evidence of something far worse than Twain ever was. An alien force has been watching humanity for centuries, and now they're done just observing.

Years after defeating aliens bent on burning down the galaxy, the Interstellar Union is breaking apart, its member species undermining each other at every opportunity. When an interdimensional distress signal arrives, only humanity is interested in helping. Captain Vin Husher is sent in with a task force....

Nine hundred light-years from home, Major Andrew Grayson and the crew of NACS Washington are marooned in a sunless system with limited water, reactor fuel, and food. The last hope for survival is to go where nothing human has gone before. After embarking on a scouting mission to the only moon with surface signs of life, Andrew and his Special Tactics Team make two startling discoveries. One is a dream: a form of protein and plant life that could save the starving humans in the rogue system. The second is a nightmare: this harvested rock is infested with Lankies.