Her neck was still bent awkwardly to the left. I was struggling to make sense of what I was seeing when she spoke. “Wha…what…hap… happened t…to me?” She stuttered and slurred, but her words could be understood. Her eyes were still glassy as she slowly turned her head to look at me. I took me a few seconds to respond. Replying to someone who was just a moment earlier to all appearances dead has a way of taking your breath away. Eventually, I managed to say, “Well, I don’t really know, I...uh...came in and there was a man in...airport coveralls named James and...” “I f-feel cold,” she muttered slowly as if she had not heard me. Sluggishly and with difficulty, she raised herself at the waist. She looked down at her bloody body surveying the damage. Until this point, I had not noticed that her right shoulder looked as if a bite had torn away a chunk of the flesh and her left cheek had four parallel deep scratches as if fingernails had ripped down the side of her face. I couldn’t see other wounds, but blood covered most of her light green uniform making it look black. “You shouldn’t move!” I yelled. “Don’t move! I’ll go find a doctor!” I was standing a few feet from her, but somehow she managed to twist around a reach my leg. I felt her hand grab hard into the skin of my calf. “No, s-s-stay here,” she hissed as I yanked my leg free and backed away. “You need a doctor!” I cried out as I spun around to leave. When I reached the doorway, I looked back at her. She was still struggling to stand even as she slid her body toward me. A trail of smeared blood stayed on the white tile floor behind her. “Stay,” she hissed again, but I was already out the door.Kevin Turner is having a very bad day. People around him aredying... but they are not staying dead. Even in a world that seems to have gone crazy, the reporter is determined make sense of it all. Now he just has to stay alive long enough to get the facts.

    Cataclysmic solar storms have forced leaders from around the world to finally put aside their differences and agree on one thing—to jump ship. The human race is headed to Mars. Dr. Sophie Winston is hired by New Tech Corporation to test a biosphere deep within the heart of Cheyenne Mountain; a mission she believes will help prepare NTC for the three-year flight to the red planet. But, just days into the assignment, things start to go wrong. When the blast doors hiss open, Winton's team finds a changed world outside. Humans are gone, vanished without a trace, and they aren't the only thing missing. The planet's water is gone, too. As the team explores their surroundings, they find thousands of luminous blue orbs lining the streets. It isn't until they uncover what's inside that they realize the nightmare that lies ahead.

    Fewer survive. Join the elite at Space Academy and fulfill your destiny today!Separated at birth, orphaned twins Peyton and Jai Foster’s lives couldn’t be more different. Raised by a billionaire, Peyton Foster has been taught that anything other than first place is failure. With her adoptive family’s name dangled like a carrot, she’ll need to not only get accepted to Space Academy but finish at the top of her class.Raised in a group shelter one step from the streets, Jai Foster has earned every meal he’s ever eaten. Discovering early that his penchant for technology gave him an undeniable advantage, Jai manages to earn a spot to the Academy with hopes of securing a future better than as some low-level corporate cog.When fellow cadets are callously murdered for failing training exercises, the orphaned twins discover that the corporations controlling the solar system are far more sinister than they could’ve ever imagined. When terrorist attacks leave millions dead, Academy’s cadets are drafted to fight the latest corporate war.But what happens when the twins discover that the terrorist enemy they’re fighting isn’t the real enemy? Will a pair of orphans follow the orders of an immoral corporation or will they find that fighting against tyranny is worth everything?Experience the start of an exciting new Military Sci-Fi series by Amazon Bestsellers Jamie McFarlane and Rachel Aukes. Join the fight today!

    With resources running low, and her physical strength severely compromised, May must rely on someone back home to help her. The problem is: everyone thinks she’s dead.Back on Earth, it’s been weeks since Hawking II has communicated with NASA, and Dr. Stephen Knox is on bereavement leave to deal with the apparent death of his estranged wife, whose decision to participate in the Europa mission strained their marriage past the point of no return. But when he gets word that NASA has received a transmission from May, Stephen comes rushing to her aid.What he doesn’t know is that not everyone wants May to make it back alive. Even more terrifying: she might not be alone on that ship. Featuring a twisting and suspenseful plot and compelling characters, Across the Void is a moving and evocative thriller that you won’t be able to put down.

    Well, half a sham. While the program has successfully launched five capsules into space, the Chief Designer and his team have never successfully brought one back to earth. To disguise this, they've used twins. But in a nation built on secrets and propaganda, the biggest lie of all is about to unravel.Because there are no more twins left.Combining history and fiction, the real and the mystical, First Cosmic Velocity is the story of Leonid, the last of the twins. Taken in 1950 from a life of poverty in Ukraine to the training grounds in Russia, the Leonids were given one name and one identity, but divergent fates. Now one Leonid has launched to certain death (or so one might think...), and the other is sent on a press tour under the watchful eye of Ignatius, the government agent who knows too much but gives away little. And while Leonid battles his increasing doubts about their deceitful project, the Chief Designer must scramble to perfect a working spacecraft, especially when Khrushchev nominates his high-strung, squirrel-like dog for the first canine mission.By turns grim and whimsical, fatalistic and deeply hopeful, First Cosmic Velocity is a sweeping novel of the heights of mankind's accomplishments, the depths of its folly, and the people--and canines--with whom we create family.

    He contained it and buried it in cold storage deep beneath a little-used military repository.Now, after decades of festering in a forgotten sub-basement, the specimen has found its way out and is on a lethal feeding frenzy. Only Diaz knows how to stop it.He races across the country to help two unwitting security guards—one an ex-con, the other a single mother. Over one harrowing night, the unlikely trio must figure out how to quarantine this horror again. All they have is luck, fearlessness, and a mordant sense of humor. Will that be enough to save all of humanity?

    A Diabolic is powerful. A Diabolic has a single task: Kill in order to protect the person you’ve been created for.Nemesis is a Diabolic, a humanoid teenager created to protect a galactic senator’s daughter, Sidonia. The two have grown up side by side, but are in no way sisters. Nemesis is expected to give her life for Sidonia, and she would do so gladly. She would also take as many lives as necessary to keep Sidonia safe.When the power-mad Emperor learns Sidonia’s father is participating in a rebellion, he summons Sidonia to the Galactic court. She is to serve as a hostage. Now, there is only one way for Nemesis to protect Sidonia. She must become her. Nemesis travels to the court disguised as Sidonia—a killing machine masquerading in a world of corrupt politicians and two-faced senators’ children. It’s a nest of vipers with threats on every side, but Nemesis must keep her true abilities a secret or risk everything.As the Empire begins to fracture and rebellion looms closer, Nemesis learns there is something more to her than just deadly force. She finds a humanity truer than what she encounters from most humans. Amidst all the danger, action, and intrigue, her humanity just might be the thing that saves her life—and the empire.

    Fighters bombard the ruins. Monsters hunt the wastes – some humans serving the Welorin in order to indulge their petty cruelties. The last free survivors struggle against starvation and capture. It’s a world where friendship costs too dearly and heroics verge on suicide.One young man simply can’t resist either. Welorin torture machines ravage his world, filling it with literal nightmares. Cannibalistic aerobics instructors hunt him and snatcher teams dog his every step. Alaric attempts one rescue after another, hoping someone might possess keys to unlock memories stolen by the initial assault.An aborted rescue lands him in a three way fight between Welorin forces and interstellar raiders. He takes cover in the pirates’ ship, coercing its AI, Cassii, into helping him. Success comes with unexpected consequence as Cassii abandons her crew, his friends and Earth’s solar system.Cassii refuses to return to Earth, decrying her former captain’s despoiling of the ship’s weapons and armor. Alaric leverages goods stolen from Earth by Cassii’s former crew into a bid at privateering. Surrounded by tech he barely understands and exotic life forms, he’s easy prey for the Protectorate’s mercenary population.Escort Captain Manc Shepherd and the sultry pirate Tyne Ren – Manc’s onetime partner – manipulate, exploit and seduce him across the stars. Alaric’s perilous heroics complicate their tug-of-war, endangering both and Alaric’s ship – their intended prize.Alaric must decide who he is, what he holds dear and how far he’ll go to protect both. He must choose who to trust: his mentor, his temptress or his smitten ship’s AI. The right choice could save worlds. The wrong one could throw him into a desperate battle to save thousands from his betrayer at the cost of his truest friend.

    All she knows is that she won’t discover it working as a waitress at a pies-and-fries joint in Los Angeles or living with her fun but aimless best friend in a tiny apartment in the Arts District.Then Charlotte collides with Adam, a gorgeous and soulful painter who seems just as lost as she feels. Their instant connection turns into a midnight drink… and a whirlwind night of champagne, Chinese food, and the kind of conversation that only happens in romantic comedies. But the next morning, Adam gives Charlotte the cold shoulder, leaving her confused and hurt—and wondering if the few odd moments between them the night before were red flags in disguise.Months later, Charlotte hasn’t been able to shake Adam, so she decides to find out what happened the morning after their magical night together. This fateful decision rewrites their wild love story, but what Charlotte doesn’t know yet is that the ending has already been written.

    He's spent seven years putting himself back together under its rule, joining an Umber military academy and becoming the best pilot in his class. Even better, he's met Gal Veres--his exasperating and infuriatingly enticing roommate who's made the Academy feel like a new home. But when dozens of classmates spring an assassination plot on Gal, a devastating secret comes to light: Gal is the heir to the Umber Empire. Ettian barely manages to save his best friend and flee the compromised Academy unscathed, rattled both that Gal stands to inherit the empire that broke him and that there are still people willing to fight back against Umber rule. As they piece together a way to deliver Gal safely to his throne, Ettian finds himself torn in half by an impossible choice. Does he save the man who's won his heart and trust that Gal's goodness could transform the empire? Or does he throw his lot in with the brewing rebellion and fight to take back what's rightfully theirs?

    In the midst of brewing tensions, disgraced pilot Rex Vahl is tapped for a suicide mission: infiltrate an interplanetary power known only as the “Hegemony” and discover what hides behind their veil of secrecy.What does Rex have on his side? His co-pilot is a former prostitute with tiger-striped skin. His gunner is a traitorous ex-nobleman wanted by his countrymen. His engineer is a laid-back cyborg exiled for asking one too many questions about God. Add in a woman genetically engineered to have no free will, and you get his motley crew. Armed with only a souped-up freighter, Rex blasts off to pursue rumors of a mysterious Hegemony ambassador on the planet of Cordelia. To get there, he and his crew must cross the Chaos Quarter, a tumultuous territory defined by tyrants, pirates, and religious extremists. Even if they survive the journey, the ambassador could prove deadlier than any enemy they face along the way.But when Rex discovers that the Empire of Europa—the Commonwealth’s greatest foe—has agents skulking in the shadows, he realizes his mission is no longer a secret. And if he secures his prize now, the intergalactic fallout could unleash the most deadly war the galaxy has ever seen.Revised edition: Previously published, this edition of Chaos Quarter includes editorial revisions.

    The risk to his friends at the academy is the hidden price. His challenge is how to balance the risks.The final stage of his training is a shakedown cruise on an old minesweeper, barely able to achieve FTL entry and exit.Midway through their cruise, the minesweeper collides with an ancient alien wreck, ripping the sides off the starship. Jack’s team of bots help seal the combined wreck to prevent air loss. Ghost, a nanolife form from the alien wreck, provides assistance.Jack and his girlfriend, Sofia, are the only survivors, and air, food, and supplies are critical.The countdown of days to survive is ticking.No wonder the Royal Family are angry.And there’s still a price on Jack’s head.