Showing results by author "Karen Traviss" in All Categories

It's 2553. The theocratic military alliance known as the Covenant has collapsed after a long, brutal war with humanity that saw billions slaughtered on Earth and its colonies. For the first time in 30 years, however, peace finally seems possible. But though the fighting has stopped, the war is far from over: It’s just gone underground. 

When the Locust Horde burst from the ground 15 years ago to slaughter the human population of Sera, mankind began a desperate war against extinction. Now, after a decade and a half of bloody fighting, and with billions dead, the survivors have been forced to destroy their own cities and sacrifice their entire civilization to halt the Locust advance. The last-ditch measures have succeeded, but at an enormous cost: the survivors have been reduced to a handful of refugees.

Ten years after Emergence Day, as the Locust Horde advances on humanity’s last defended area -Ephyra - in a bloody war that has seen billions die, Marcus Fenix does the unthinkable: he defies orders and abandons his post during a critical battle in a bid to rescue his father, weapons scientist Adam Fenix. But Adam is buried in the rubble during a ferocious assault on the Fenix mansion, and Ephyra falls to the enemy.

Across the galaxy, the Clone Wars are raging. The Separatists, led by Count Dooku, the onetime Jedi and now secret Sith Lord, continue to press forward, and more and more worlds are either falling, or seceding and joining the cause. Under the leadership of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, the Republic heroically battles on, championed by its huge army of cloned soldiers and their Jedi generals.

When humanity expanded beyond the safety of Earth to new stars and horizons, it never dreamed what dangers would be encounter there. When the theocratic alien juggernaut known as the Covenant declared war upon the fragile human empire, millions of lives were lost - but millions of heroes also rose to the challenge. This collection of 11 stories dives into the depths of the vast Halo universe, not only from the perspective of those who fought and died to save humanity, but also from those who vowed to wipe it out of existence.

The West has been devastated by epidemics, bio-terrorism, war, and famine. Asia has shut its borders to keep the threats at bay, and some with power and influence have already abandoned Earth. Now an escape route a century in the making - the Nomad mission - finally offers hope to a small town and a secret research centre hidden in a rural American backwater. Shrouded in lies and concealed even from the research centre's staff, Nomad is about to fulfil its long-dead founder's vision of preserving the best of humanity to forge a new future. But who decides who's worthy?

It's 2553. Welcome to humanity’s new war: silent, high-stakes, and unseen. This is a life-or-death mission for the Office of Naval Intelligence’s black-ops team, Kilo-Five, which is tasked with preventing the ruthless Sangheili, once the military leaders of the alien alliance known as the Covenant, from regrouping and threatening humankind again. What began as a routine dirty-tricks operation - keeping the Sangheili occupied with their own insurrection - turns into a desperate bid to extract one member of Kilo-Five from the seething heart of a brutal civil war.  

As kids, the three of them were inseparable; as soldiers, they were torn apart. Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago fought alongside Dom's elder brother Carlos at Aspho Fields in the epic battle that changed the course of the Pendulum Wars. There's a new war to fight now, a war for mankind's very survival. But while the last human stronghold on Sera braces itself for another onslaught from the Locust Horde, ghosts come back to haunt Marcus and Dom.

It's 2553. With the 30-year-long Covenant War finally over, the Office of Naval Intelligence faces old grievances rising again to threaten Earth. Angry and bitter colonists - still wanting to settle scores from an insurrection put on hold for three decades - crave justice...as does a man whose life was torn apart by ONI when his young daughter was abducted for the SPARTAN-II program.  

Civil war looms as the fledgling Galactic Alliance confronts a growing number of rebellious worlds - and the approaching war is tearing the Skywalker and Solo families apart. Han and Leia return to Han's homeworld, Corellia, the heart of the resistance. Their children, Jacen and Jaina, are soldiers in the Galactic Alliance's campaign to crush the insurgents.

After a brutal 15-year war for survival, the Coalition of Ordered Governments is forced to destroy mankind's last city in a final bid to stop the Locust Horde. As the survivors flee Jacinto, they must contend with the last of the Locust, bent on vengeance, as they struggle to stay alive in an icy wilderness. Marcus Fenix, Dom Santiago, and their fellow Gears fight to get Jacinto's refugees to a safe haven but find themselves in a lawless new world - where the enemy is human.

Jacen Solo's shadow of influence has threatened many, especially those closest to him. Jaina Solo is determined to bring her brother in, but in order to track him down, she must first learn unfamiliar skills from a man she finds ruthless, repellent, and dangerous. Meanwhile, Ben Skywalker, still haunted by suspicions that Jacen killed his mother, Mara, decides he must know the truth, even if it costs him his life.

Torrent Company's Captain Rex agrees to temporarily relieve Anakin Skywalker of Ahsoka, his ubiquitous and insatiably curious Padawan, by bringing her along on a routine three-day shakedown cruise aboard Captain Gilad Pellaeon's newly refitted assault ship. But the training run becomes an active and dangerous rescue mission when Republic undercover Agent Hallena Devis goes missing in the middle of a Separatist invasion. 

With the Locust Horde apparently destroyed, Jacinto's survivors have begun to rebuild human society on the Locusts' stronghold. Raiding pirate gangs take a toll - but it's nothing that Marcus Fenix and the Gears can't handle. Then the nightmare that they thought they'd left behind begins to stalk them again. Something far worse, something even the Locust dreaded, has emerged to spread across the planet, and not even this remote island haven is beyond its reach.

Civil war rages as the Galactic Alliance, led by Cal Omas and the Jedi forces of Luke Skywalker, battles a confederation of breakaway planets that rally to the side of rebellious Corellia. Suspected of involvement in an assassination plot against Queen Mother Tenel Ka of the Hapes Consortium, Han and Leia Solo are on the run, hunted by none other than their own son, Jacen.

Ian isn't crazy. Life would be a lot simpler if he was. He's eighteen, on the run, and scared - the shape-shifting delusions he's had since childhood have turned out to be real. He's the result of a dynamic mimicry project intended to help undercover agents "go grey" and blend in unnoticed. Now the biotech company wants its property back, and the only people he can trust are two private military contractors sent to find him...

Rob lives by the maxim that there's no such thing as over. And something's certainly not over for him. An unknown, unseen enemy is stalking him, with tragic consequences for his son and ex-wife. As Rob and Mike close ranks to protect their families, they find themselves up against industrial espionage, two warring scientists, and a blood feud that won't end until somebody pays with their life. Their best hope of putting the past to rest forever could lie in the unique genetic skills of a runaway teenager.