Yet in the wake of those final battles comes a reprieve, a new peace maintained by the knowledge that total war is too devastating to even contemplate, that the weapons employed--should they come into common use--would lay waste to the galaxy. Admiral Tanis Richards, the former Field Marshal, wishes nothing more than to retire to her lakehouse and stare out over the rippling waters for a year or two, but knows she cannot. For the greatest enemy that humanity and free AIs have ever faced waits for her at the galactic core. Epsilon, a powerful AI, his nodes filling an entire world, is has his mind bent on remaking the universe, and organic life is not in the blueprint. Though they yearn to enjoy the fruits of their labors, Tanis and her allies must prepare for one final battle against the scions of the human race. They must prepare to fight The Ascension War.

    They were wrong. On October 15th, humanity went missing. A handful of scattered survivors wake to find the world empty of friends, family, and neighbors. Among them, a child searches for his family. A special agent turned enemy of the state survives a fiery plane crash with no way to reach his daughter. A serial killer discovers he’s no longer at the top of the food chain. Now these strangers must find the strength inside them to weather the new world. But they are not alone. In the absence of civilization, a new threat emerges. In the stillness, it waits and watches, preying on their weakness. Their only hope is to find more survivors, rise above their fear, and face the oncoming darkness.

    King. Do not let the lack of light stop you from discovering more adventures and stories that will keep you up at night and ignite the imagination. There is no place to hide in, THE DARKNESS!

    In my view, there isn't higher praise than that."--Brian Keene, author of The Rising Meet Delphine, Simone, and Zarina. Together they are the Sisters of the Endless Night. For centuries the coven has traveled the width and breadth of the country, unable to call any one place home for very long. The black magic that has sustained their youth and beauty over the centuries requires frequent ritual human sacrifice. Thus they must move often to avoid detection by those who would oppose them. Now the coven has come to idyllic Wagner Avenue, the very heart of American suburbia. It is here where the alluring witches will face their gravest challenges yet. Dark forces are in motion, the cauldron is boiling, the pentagram is bleeding, and trouble is brewing. The witching hour is here. "Bryan Smith is one of the most reliable and consistently entertaining writers working in the horror and suspense genres."--Ray Garton, author of Live Girls

    Meanwhile, Bill Butler is roused from his bed and, together with his Knock team, must try to outwit the devious smugglers. Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection The Veteran.

    The doors are locked, the curtains are closed, mattresses are nailed over the windows.They are out there. She might let them in.The children sleep in the bedroom across the hall.Soon she will have to wake them. Soon she will have to blindfold them.Today they must leave the house. Today they will risk everything.

    For almost three years, the Federation and the Klingon Empire, allied under the Khitomer Accords, have contended with the nascent coalition on a predominantly cold-war footing. But as Starfleet rebuilds itself, factions within the Typhon Pact grow restive, concerned about their own inability to develop a quantum slipstream drive to match that of the Federation. Will leaders such as UFP President Bacco and RSE Praetor Kamemor bring about a lasting peace across the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, or will the cold war between the two alliances deepen, and perhaps even lead to an all-out shooting war? Raise the Dawn After the disastrous events in the Bajoran system, Captain Benjamin Sisko must confront the consequences of the recent choices he has made in his life. At the same time, the United Federation of Planets and its Khitomer Accords allies have come to the brink of war with the Typhon Pact. While factions within the Pact unsuccessfully used the recent gestures of goodwill—the opening of borders and a joint Federation-Romulan exploratory mission—to develop quantum-slipstream drive, they have not given up their goals. Employing a broad range of assets, from Romulus to Cardassia, from Ab-Tzenketh to Bajor, they embark on a dangerous new plan to acquire the technology they need to take control of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. While UFP President Bacco and Romulan Praetor Kamemor work feverishly to reestablish peace, Captains Sisko, Jean-Luc Picard, and Ro Laren stand on the front lines of the conflict...even as a new danger threatens the Bajoran wormhole as it once more becomes a flashpoint of galactic history. Brinkmanship The Venette Convention has always remained independent, but it is about to become the flashpoint for a tense military standoff between the two power blocs now dominating interstellar space—the United Federation of Planets and the recently formed Typhon Pact. The Venetan government turns to the Typhon Pact’s Tzenkethi Coalition for protection in the new order, and has agreed to allow three of their supply bases for Tzenkethi use. But these bases—if militarized—would put Tzenkethi weapons unacceptably close to Federation, Cardassian, and Ferengi space. While Captain Ezri Dax and the crew of the U.S.S. Aventine are sent to investigate exactly what is happening at one of the Venette bases, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the U.S.S. Enterprise are assigned to a diplomatic mission sent to the Venette homeworld in order to broker a mutually acceptable resolution. But the Cardassian delegates don’t seem particularly keen on using diplomacy to resolve the situation, which soon spirals out of control toward all-out war. . .

    A sixteen year veteran and second-generation cop, Schaffer possesses a keen insight into what it takes to successfully uphold the law and not lose your mind in the process. Equal parts biography and instructional guide, Way of the Warrior focuses on the core of the individual officer: the warrior spirit.Whether you're a grunt working The Street or a white shirt who'd need a GPS to find it, this guide is designed to help you reconnect with why you took the oath to serve and protect. Behind the badge and the gun lies the heart of a warrior. Unleash your inner hero.One of the most authentic Law Enforcement Kindle books available, this essay on the modern warrior society of police officers is part-biography, part-instructional guide as to what it means to protect and serve the public, at any cost. It employs Law Enforcement leadership principals, Law Enforcement tactics and methods of Law Enforcement intelligence, but focuses on the core of the individual officer: the warrior spirit.For anyone interested in real Law Enforcement police stories, whether they are grunts in the field or in positions of police leadership. Behind the badge and the gun lies the heart of a warrior. Unleash your inner hero.

    

    But what emerges from the shadows of the town’s waste plant is beyond anything found in nature.Fist-sized cockroaches. Bird-sized wasps. Spiders, millipedes, ticks, all swollen to enormous bulk with vicious appetites to match. And other things, creatures that should never exist.Through the night they come, slithering, buzzing, scuttling, crawling over skin, burrowing into flesh, making the town their nest.Time is soon running out for Crease and the other survivors, as that hideous skittering noise closes in from all around…

    3 Vols.

    As a Houston prosecutor he sent sixteen men to death row, and watched seven of them die. But now, in the aftermath of his wife's death, the grief-stricken father packs up his four-year-old daughter, Annie, and returns to his hometown in search of healing. But peace is not what he finds there. Natchez, Mississippi, is the jewel of the antebellum South, a city of old money and older sins, where passion, power, and racial tensions seethe beneath its elegant façade. After twenty years away, Penn is stunned to find his own family trapped in a web of intrigue and danger. Determined to save his father from a ruthless blackmailer, Penn stumbles over a link to the town's darkest secret: the thirty-year-old unsolved murder of a black Korean War veteran. But what drives him to act is the revelation that this haunting mystery is inextricably bound up in his own past. Under a blaze of national media attention, Penn reopens the case, only to find local records destroyed, the FBI file sealed, and the town closing ranks against him.…Turning AngelTurning Angel marks the long-awaited return of Penn Cage, the lawyer hero of The Quiet Game, and introduces Drew Elliott, the highly respected doctor who saved Penn’s life in a hiking accident when they were boys. As two of the most prominent citizens of Natchez, Drew and Penn sit on the school board of their alma mater, St. Stephen’s Prep. When the nude body of a young female student is found near the Mississippi River, the entire community is shocked—but no one more than Penn, who discovers that his best friend was entangled in a passionate relationship with the girl and may be accused of her murder.The Devil’s PunchbowlAs a prosecutor in Houston, Penn Cage sent killers to death row. But as mayor of his hometown—Natchez, Mississippi—Penn will face his most dangerous threat. Urged by old friends to try to restore this fading jewel of the Old South, Penn has ridden into office on a tide of support for change. But in its quest for new jobs and fresh money, Natchez has turned to casino gambling, and now five steamboats float on the river beside the old slave market, like props from Gone With the Wind.

    Can she give up searching for the one and reclaim the other? Or is she fated to repeat the mistakes her mother made?Jaynie Highsmith grows up in Cub Creek on Hope Road acutely aware of the irony of its name, Hope, because she wants nothing more than to escape from it and the chaos of her childhood.Desperate to leave her past behind and make a new life, she is determined to become the best version of herself she can create. But when she does take off, she also leaves ~ and forgets ~ important parts of her past and herself.The new life is everything she wants, or so she thinks until she finds herself repeating the same mistakes her mother made. Is Jaynie destined for unhappiness? Is it like mother, like daughter? Did running away only delay the unhappiness she fears she is destined for?Seventeen years after leaving home, Jaynie needs a new fresh start and returning to Cub Creek is critical, but she is determined that the visit will be as short as possible and then she'll be out and free again. However, a longer stay may be vital to her future because if she has any hope of changing her destiny, Jaynie must reconcile the past she turned her back on with her present.

    X. L. Pendergast is abruptly forced to accept an unthinkable condition of continued employment: the famously rogue agent must now work with a partner. Pendergast and his new colleague, junior agent Coldmoon, are assigned to investigate a rash of killings in Miami Beach, where a bloodthirsty psychopath is cutting out the hearts of his victims and leaving them with cryptic handwritten letters at local gravestones. The graves are unconnected save in one bizarre way: all belong to women who committed suicide. But the seeming lack of connection between the old suicides and the new murders is soon the least of Pendergast's worries. Because as he digs deeper, he realizes the brutal new crimes may be just the tip of the iceberg: a conspiracy of death that reaches back decades.

    Now, a familiar posse runs the town called Marigold and its mining community with their sharp and newly deputized claws. After finding out that this shot of evil has infected her life again and now rules everyone still left on the mountain, she quickly begins to search for the root source of its existence, before it poisons the people and the land itself forever.