Military Space Opera Fantasy

Get ready to experience two more origin stories in the Backyard Starship universe.

Prince Roger MacClintock, Tertiary Heir to the Throne of Man, was a spoiled rotten, arrogant, whiny, thoroughly useless young pain in the butt. But that was before an assassination attempt marooned the Royal Brat and his bodyguards on the planet Marduk, and before they had to march half way around the entire planet, through 120-degree heat and five-hour rainstorms in jungles full of damnbeasts, capetoads, killerpillars, and atul-grak, not to mention hostile peoples, to make their way back to port.

Sergeant Gastovsky—Gas to everyone but his superior officers—never wanted to be a soldier. Far from it. But when a con goes wrong and he needs a place to lay low for a while, he finds himself wearing the power armor of the augmented infantry. After three years on a six-year contract, Gas has found his groove running low-level cons and various illegal activities that make him good money on the side. He’s the guy who can get you what you need. But he’s always had his eye out for a big score—the one that might set him up for life after the military.

The Xaros, a galaxy-wide scourge of murderous drones, have their sights set on the planet Takeni. Captain Isaac Valdar volunteers his ship to defend the innocent civilians and evacuate everyone he can. Pressed by an alien fleet in space and a horrifying foe on the surface, the Breitenfeld must risk everything to save the doomed populace.

Hidden aboard the USS Enterprise is a secret that has been passed from captain to captain, from Robert April to Christopher Pike to James T. Kirk. Now the return of the enigmatic woman once known as Number One has brought that secret to light, and Kirk and his crew must risk everything to finish a mission that began with April so many years ago.

Outnumbered by the superior forces and firepower of the Syndicate Worlds, the Alliance fleet continues its dangerous retreat across the enemy star system. Led by the legendary Captain John “Black Jack” Geary, who returned to the fleet after a hundred-year suspended animation, the Alliance is desperately trying to return home with its captured prize: the key to the Syndic hypernet, and the key to victory…

The star cluster's super-powers tried to make peace last. Truly, they did. But everyone knew war between Ascendant Horizon and the Coalition of Giants was inevitable. Saddled with an alliance that seems to struggle with the basics of space warfare, Captain Thatcher must fall back on his tactical prowess—along with the steadfastness of the crews under his command—just to keep his people alive. But an enemy lurks around every corner, and there is dissension even in Thatcher's fleet.

A legendary hero, he is promoted to fleet admiral—even though the ruling council fears he may stage a military coup. Geary has never fought for the sake of glory. His new rank means only that he has the authority to negotiate with the Syndics, who have suffered tremendous losses and may finally be willing to end the war. With grim determination, Geary leads the fleet back out into Syndic space.

The Horus Heresy was the darkest moment in the history of mankind, as brother turned upon brother and threatened to tear the galaxy apart. This bundle of audiobooks delivers an action-packed, yet intimate look at the heroes and villains of the era. In this collection of audiobooks, Black Library stalwarts take on big names and story beats pertaining to some of the landmark events of the Horus Heresy - the greatest conflict the galaxy has ever known.

The Machine - a terrifying and relentless enemy - reigns supreme in the galaxy, and the real fight is just beginning. Omega Force keenly feels the weight of responsibility for the Machine's arrival in the quadrant, but even with the resources of the Blazing Sun organized crime syndicate backing them, there's only so much the small mercenary crew can do against the malevolent AI that has already usurped control of most of the government. The Machine is now firmly in control of the ConFed's military.

Thawed out after a century of cryogenic sleep, Captain John “Black Jack” Geary has led the Alliance fleet through Syndicate Worlds space, thwarting the enemy at every turn—even within his own ranks—during the long journey home. Alliance prisoners of war are being held at a labor camp in the Heradao Star System, which also happens to be the location of the majority of the surviving Syndic warships. Determined not to leave any of his people behind, Black Jack Geary orders the fleet to strike hard and fast to rescue the POWs with minimal Alliance losses.

With Earth in the path of the rapacious Posleen, the Galactic Federation offers help to the backward humans - for a price. You can protect yourself from your enemies, but God save you from your allies!

As the Great Crusade enters its sixth decade, the fleets and armies of the Emperor spear out into the galaxy to bring the Imperial Truth to thousands of worlds. Expansion has been swift, but must now be tempered with consolidation. Even so, the Emperor demands that the boundaries of the Imperium be pushed further into the unknown. The Master of Mankind tasks four primarchs with the dangerous mission of securing the worlds of the Occluda Noctis—hundreds of star systems on the far side of the Northern Major Warp Storm.

The Solarian League lies in defeat, crushed by the Grand Alliance of Manticore, Haven, and Grayson. Obedient to the Alliance's surrender demands, the League is writing a new Constitution, to prevent the reemergence of out-of-control bureaucrats, like the "Mandarins" who led it to disaster. Frontier Security has been disbanded, the outer worlds have regained control of their own economic destinies, and multiple star systems will soon secede from the League entirely.

For the past year, their close loss in the annual Boarding Games has haunted Interceptor Team: Zuma’s Ghost. With this year’s competition looming, they’re looking forward to some payback - until an unexpected personnel change leaves them reeling. Their best swordsman has been transferred, and a new lieutenant has been assigned in his place. Maxine Carmichael is trying to carve a place in the world on her own - away from the pressure and influence of her powerful family. The last thing she wants is to cause trouble at her command on Jupiter Station.

For long years, the White Scars have fought for the Imperium, bringing worlds to compliance. But when a new project, to embed psykers in the Space Marine Legions, seems likely to come to fruition, Jaghatai Khan must decide if he will comply...Listen to it because Chris Wraight returns to the Khan of Khans with a tale set at the height of the Great Crusade and showing the momentous decisions that, in some ways, led to the darkest events of the Horus Heresy.

Twenty years have passed since the interstellar scourge known as the Husnock were exterminated without warning by a being with godlike abilities. Left behind, intact but abandoned, their desolate worlds and derelict ships brim with destructive potential. Now a discovery by a Federation cultural research team has drawn the attention of several ruthless factions. From black market smugglers to alien military forces, it seems every belligerent power in the quadrant hopes to capture the Husnock's lethal technology.

Humanity's first colony is a project neither the Duchy of Terra nor the A!Tol Imperium can allow to fail. The planet Hope in the Alpha Centauri system has been lavished with resources and attention - but when an unknown alien force attacks the system, all of that is in danger. An ancient alien artifact is the apparent target of the attack, an artifact older than known galactic civilization. Suddenly, the backwater colony of a second-rate power is the gathering point for a confrontation of the galaxy's greatest powers.

One hundred years before Ender's Game, the aliens arrived on Earth with fire and death. Earth Afire by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston is the story of the First Formic War. Victor Delgado beat the alien ship to Earth, but just barely. Not soon enough to convince skeptical governments that there was a threat. They didn't believe that until space stations and ships and colonies went up in sudden flame. And when that happened, only Mazer Rackham and the Mobile Operations Police could move fast enough to meet the threat.

Honor Harrington has survived ship-to-ship combat, assassins, political vendettas, and duels. But this time, Honor and her crew, ambushed and captured, are aboard an enemy ship, bound for a prison planet aptly named "Hell" - and her scheduled execution. Yet the one lesson Honor has never learned is how to give up. She and her people are going home--even if it means conquering hell to get there!