They all flared into brilliance at once, then disappeared, replaced by a flat, empty black barrier. He and his best friends, Jason and Diane Lawton, had seen what became known as the Big Blackout. It would shape their lives.Life on Earth is about to get much, much stranger.

    I threw my covers off and was halfway to my Vac-suit locker before I was fully awake. It felt like I had just fallen to sleep having just finished a long EVA shift. It would be just like Dad to have an emergency drill after an EVA shift to see if I had recharged my suit. I had, I always did, both Mom and Dad were hard taskmasters when it came to ship, and personal safety. Vac-suit recharging was top of the personal safety list. If you can't breathe, you die, easy to remember. Donning a Vac-suit was second nature for me, after 16 years of drills and practice exercises. Having literally been doing this all my life, but I loved life on our Rock-Tug. I was reaching for the comms when I felt the ship shutter. "That can't be good,” I said to myself. Mom's voice came over ship-wide, "This is not a drill, this is not a drill, meteor strike, hull breach in Engineering". Mom's voice was just as calm as if she was asking, what's for lunch. This was a way of life for us, we trained and practiced so that when the reality of working in "The Belt" happened you didn't panic, you just did your job. You didn't have to think, you knew what you needed to do, and you did it. I keyed my comms, "Roger, hull breach in Engineering, where do you need me Mom?" "Get to Engineering and help your Father, I'm on the Bridge trying to get us in the shadow of a bigger rock for some protection." Mom answered. My adrenalin was spiking but Mom's calm voice, helped to keep me calm. I sealed my helmet and left my cabin heading for Engineering. The klaxon had faded into the background, my breathing was louder than it was. I kept telling myself "Stay calm, just do your job, stay calm." I had just reached Engineering, when the Tug was rocked by a succession of impacts each one harder that the last. The hatch to Engineering was closed and the indicator light was flashing red, telling me there was hard vacuum on the other side. I switched my comms to voice activated, "Dad? I'm at the hatch to Engineering it's in lockdown, I can't override it from here." "Dad? Dad?, Dad respond! "Mom, Dad is not answering, and Engineering is sealed, you are going to have to evac the air from the rest of the ship, so I can open the hatch." Mom's steady voice replied, "Understood, emergency air evac in 10 seconds." Those were the longest 10 seconds of my short life. The hatch indicator light finally turned green and the hatch door opened. The Engineering compartment was clear. No smoke, no fire, some sparks and lots of blinking red lights. I looked over to the Engineering station console, there sat Dad. He had not had his Vac-suit on when the hull was breached. Hard Vacuum does terrible things to the human body. I suddenly realized that I had not heard Dad on comms the whole time, just Mom. She probably knew what had happened but was sending help in the hope that Dad was all right and that maybe the comms were down. I heard Mom in the background declaring an emergency and calling on the radio for help. Her voice still calm somehow, "Mayday, mayday, this is the Rock Tug Taurus, Mayday, we have taken multiple meteor strikes, have multiple hull breaches, please respond." "Come on Nic, think! What do I need to do?" I asked myself. I closed the hatch to Engineering, to seal the vacuum from the rest of the ship. I turned and started back toward the bridge. There was an impact, a light flared, and sparks; time seemed to slow, there was no sound, we were still in a vacuum, just shuttering vibrations and sparks. Holes seemed to appear in the overhead and then the deck, it was so surreal. The meteors were punching holes through our ship like a machine punching holes on an assembly line.

    This is the galaxy that Drake Rose and the crew of the freighter Trystero are stuck in. Together they traverse the Demilitarized Zone between Terran and Gra’al borders taking on any job they can find, big or small, legal or otherwise. Human or alien.A chance encounter with a derelict alien ship thrusts them into the center of a deadly conspiracy. When the Terran government refuses to get involved, the crew has no choice but to fend for themselves.A fragile peace hangs in the balance, thrust into the hands of Drake and the crew.They never wanted to be heroes. The only way to stop the ascension of a vicious warlord bent on the destruction of humanity is for them to survive.It’s Firefly meets Star Trek in this coming of age space opera tale.

    Fashioning themselves as the one true “Human Republic,” the Sturm cut a bloody swath across the stars, killing billions before finally being defeated and driven into the far reaches of Dark Space. Centuries of peace bred complacency. Everyone believed the Sturm had died out in the Dark. They were wrong.The enemy has returned and, with a brutal and decisive attack, knocks out almost all of humanity’s defenses. Now on the brink of annihilation, humankind’s only hope is a few brave souls who survived the initial attack: Commander Lucinda Hardy, thrust into uncertain command of the Royal Armadalen Navy’s only surviving warship. Booker3, a soldier of Earth, sentenced to die for treason, whose time on death row is cut short when the Sturm attack his prison compound. Princess Alessia, a young royal of the Montanblanc Corporation, forced to flee when her home planet is overrun and her entire family executed. Sephina L’trel, the leader of an outlaw band who must call on all of her criminal skills to resist the invasion. And, finally, Admiral Frazer McLennan, the infamous hero of the first war with the Sturm hundreds of years ago, who hopes to rout his old foes once and for all—or die trying.These five flawed, reluctant heroes must band together to prevail against a relentless enemy and near-impossible odds. For if they fail, the future itself is doomed.

    Now they own us.The Legend of ZERO: Forging Zero is the epic journey of 14-year-old Joe Dobbs in a post-apocalyptic universe following a massive galactic empire's invasion of Earth. The oldest of the children drafted from humanity’s devastated planet, Joe is impressed into service by the alien Congressional Ground Force—and becomes the unwitting centerpiece in a millennia-long alien struggle for independence. Once his training begins, one of the elusive and prophetic Trith appears to give Joe a spine chilling prophecy that the universe has been anticipating for millions of years: Joe will be the one to finally shatter the vast alien government known as Congress. And the Trith cannot lie.…But first Joe has to make it through bootcamp.

    Sixty-seven years ago the Qash'vo'tar conquered Earth. They had judged humanity as dangerous and unworthy of joining the other races among the stars. Ever since then, the aliens had ruled from above, keeping humanity from even thinking about reaching for the stars. The Qash'vo'tar did not care what humanity did on the ground, as long as they didn't attempt to build anything that could get them to the stars. Outmatched in every way and not willing to accept the cost of fighting back, the United Earth gave up ever again reaching beyond the boundary of Earth's sky. In its isolation, humanity turned its eyes from the sky and pointed them to the ground. Instead of the stars, humanity explored the oceans, burrowed deep underground, and broadened its understanding of laws of physics. Until finally they could take no more. In secret the United Earth's best scientists attempted to find a way out. They experimented, and in a single moment changed the fate of humanity. Accidentally, they broke through someplace else, created a breach in space-time. Deep underground, they created a portal to another universe. They made a breach to a universe where there was magic. This new universe changed them, changed their own universe. This one accident gave them a new weapon against the Qash'vo'tar. A weapon that the aliens had no knowledge of. It gave humanity magic. And they studied it, integrated it with their technology, and they waited for the right time to strike back against their alien overlords. And now, sixty-seven years after they had been conquered, it was time for humanity to show the Qash'vo'tar that they had been right to fear humanity. Now was the time for humanity to reclaim its world and carve a place for Earth among the stars. Broken Stars is the first book in the Universe on Fire series, an epic science fiction series with some fantasy elements. It follows humanity as it attempts to make a place for itself in a hostile galaxy.

     They are trained to improvise, adapt, overcome and win every fight. A deadly disease threatens the Dotari, Earth’s allies, with extinction. The cure lies in deep space, and Lieutenant Hoffman and his team will join the starship Breitenfeld as it journeys into the void and makes a desperate attempt to save the dying race. Lurking in the abyss is a threat that’s waited with inhuman patience. Hoffman must lead his Marines through a gauntlet and evade a foe designed to hunt and kill them. The Dotari Salvation is an action-packed military science fiction adventure set in the best-selling Ember War universe.

    They were wrong.Inside a dystopian school in the Singularity, the twelve-year-old girl known as One Twenty-Four struggles to survive. Failure to conform means death at the hands of her teacher.Assuming her clone sisters don't kill her first.The Terran Empire has tasked Imperial Marine Lieutenant Grace Tolliver to lead her platoon into the Singularity as a privateer. Her mission: to tear a great bloody strip off their enemies and to take anything that isn't nailed down.The collision of this unlikely pair will change the humanity in ways that no one could predict. If they survive.Author's Note: This novel takes place more than five centuries before the Empire of Bones series and the events unfolding here have implications there.

    Humankind destroyed. And it’s old news. Romy’s life is simple—for a genetically enhanced space soldier; pick up space junk with her four friends, and stave off the invaders fixated on stealing Planet Earth. It isn’t much. But it’s temporary—only another 850 years to go, give or take. When her crew tangles with a gulp-worthy alien mothership, Romy’s return to Earth is brought forwards at hurtling pace. Strength comes from the unlikeliest of quarters. As does leadership. …As does betrayal.

    Genetic flaws are taboo, and Adam soon discovers there’s a thin line between rising star and starving outcast.Stripped of wealth and position, stricken with a mysterious, worsening illness, Adam resorts to stealing credits to survive. Moments from capture by the Protectorate, help arrives in the form of Lochlan, a brash, cocksure Bideshi fighter.Now the Bideshi, a people long shunned by the Protectorate, are the only ones who will offer him shelter. As Adam learns the truth about the mysterious, nomadic people he was taught to fear, Lochlan offers him not just shelter—but a temptation Adam can only resist for so long.Struggling to adapt to his new life, Adam discovers his illness hides a terrible secret, one that the Protectorate will stop at nothing to conceal. Time is growing short, and he must find the strength to close a centuries-old rift, accept a new identity—and hold on to a love that could cost him everything.

    They must act as soldier/protectors of the far more civilized races who have long since turned away from war... — Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr was a battle-hardened professional. So when she and those in her platoon who'd survived the last deadly encounter with the Others were yanked from a well-deserved leave for what was supposed to be "easy" duty as the honor guard for a diplomatic mission to the non-Confederation world of the Silsviss, she was ready for anything.At first it seemed that all she'd have to contend with was bored troops getting into mischief, and breaking in the new Second Lieutenant who had been given command of her men.Sure, there'd been rumors of the Others - the sworn enemies of the Confederation - being spotted in this sector of space. But there were always rumors. The key thing was to recruit the Silsviss into the Confederation before the Others either attacked or claimed this lizardlike race of warriors for their own side. And everything seemed to be going perfectly. Maybe too perfectly...

    Did some cryptic patron race begin the job long ago, then abandon us? Or did we leap all by ourselves? That question burns, yet a greater mystery looms ahead, in the furnace of a star. Under the caverns of Mercury, Expedition Sundiver prepares for the most momentous voyage in our history – into the boiling inferno of the sun, seeking our destiny in the cosmic order of life.

    NASA, NATO, and the UN sent explorers to the asteroid's surface...and discovered marvels and mysteries to drive researchers mad.For the Stone was from space--but perhaps not our space; it came from the future-but perhaps not our future; and within the hollowed asteroid was Thistledown. The remains of a vanished civilization. A human--English, Russian, and Chinese-speaking--civilization. Seven vast chambers containing forests, lakes, rivers, hanging cities...And museums describing the Death; the catastrophic war that was about to occur; the horror and the long winter that would follow. But while scientists and politicians bickered about how to use the information to stop the Death, the Stone yielded a secret that made even Earth's survival pale into insignificance.

    Earth has been dominated for 1,000 years by an alien invader—and man is an endangered species. From the handful of surviving humans a courageous leader emerges—Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, who challenges the invincible might of the alien Psychlo empire in a battle of epic scale, danger and intrigue with the fate of the Earth and of the universe in the tenuous balance.

    Now, the American government is ready to share the Rho Project discoveries with the world. But as the world scrambles to adopt the alien technologies, three high schoolers make another shocking discovery: hidden inside a cave in the New Mexico wilderness lies another alien ship. As the friends explore the second ship, they begin to unravel a decades-long secret involving an extraterrestrial war, government cover-ups, and secret experimentation using alien technology on humans. A battle has begun, and the secrets of the second ship may be the key to humanity's last chance for survival.