Book picks similar to
Lt. Reilly 2321: by Matthew O. Duncan
science-fiction
sci-fi
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military
War INC: Ace Evans Series book 1
Toby Neighbors - 2020
Getting into a mechanized battle suit isn’t easy, and controlling the powerful war machine shouldn’t be possible without Ahzco’s secret Implanted Neural Control (INC) chip, but Alex is about to do something no one on a hundred worlds has ever done. And his life is never going to be the same. In the future, mega corporations control entire star systems and are even more powerful than the government. Competition isn’t just big business — it’s war! Join Alex Evans as he gets fast-tracked into Ahzco’s Corporate Defense Force and the world of mechanized warfare. There are secrets that people will kill to keep, and dangers that can’t be avoided. The company opens the entire galaxy to a young man from a colony planet, but Alex must determine if he can trust that Ahzco has his best interests in mind. Or if he’s just another pawn in their corporate games. War INC is a fantastic coming of age story set in a classic sci-fi universe in the vein of Starship Troopers, the Frontline books, and Star Wars. Author Toby Neighbors is a master storyteller with over fifty published novels, who writes at a spellbinding pace. War INC is the first book in a new space opera series suitable for all ages.
The Bounty Hunter
Jasper T. Scott - 2020
What he didn’t know was who he’d end up hunting.When it suited the Coalition, Cade was a Paladin, a member of their elite special forces. He did their dirty work and cleaned up their messes. Until his dark ops went public, and Cade was drummed out of the service with a dishonorable discharge. As if he’d ever been doing anything but following orders.Forced to the fringes of society by his service record, Cade broke the law just to survive. Then the Enforcers caught him, and he served his time. Sick of the hypocrisy in the supposedly utopian Coalition, he crossed over to the other side and made a life among his former enemies in the Free Systems Alliance. Now he hunts the galaxy’s worst lowlifes, for a fee, and the only orders he takes are his own.But when his past catches up with him, Cade is forced to fight for more than just credits…This time, he’s in it for revenge.
The Acheron: A Military Sci-Fi Series
Rick Partlow - 2020
He signed up to escape the grinding poverty of the Housing Blocks. And the unlikely friends envisioned boring, peacetime careers as shuttle pilots. The Tahni Imperium had other ideas... Caught in the desperate fury of the Battle for Mars, the two young pilots wind up the last defense against an alien armada, but their war is just beginning. Recruited to fly the Fleet's newest weapon in this new war, they take the fight deep into the heart of the Imperium and battle not just against the enemy but against incompetent leadership and ineffectual tactics. Can the unconventional strategies of a pair of hotshot young pilots change the course of the war? And when the time comes that a choice has to be made between duty to command and loyalty to a friend, which of the two will be willing to make one last flight alone... From the author of the bestselling Drop Trooper Military Sci-Fi Series comes another tale of war against an alien menace known as the Tahni. Perfect for fans of Jay Allan, Jasper T. Scott, and Scott Bartlett. (less)
USS Hamilton: Ironhold Station
Mark Wayne McGinnis - 2020
Thousands of crew are reported dead, including the ship’s Captain. Reluctantly, the young XO, Galvin Quintos, will be taking command of the fleet's crippled dreadnaught, the USS Hamilton, while doing his best to bring fleet survivors back to Earth. Going from bad to worse, there’s a murderer running loose onboard the ship. Add to that fuel levels are critically low, and the Grish are back and in fast pursuit—ready to finish what they’d started. Only by sheer luck, along with a good measure of cagey smarts, will Quintos be able to rise to the challenge.
Strange Company
Nick Cole - 2021
Best to steer clear of the freaks in Voodoo, kid.”Surrounded and outgunned, a group of private military contractors known as “Strange Company” find themselves on a remote planet at the edge of known space, and on the losing end of a bad contract. Orbital D-beam strikes, dropships bristling with auto-guns, missiles, and troops - even Monarch space marines in state-of-the-art advanced battle rattle - will try to prevent the company from reaching the exfil LZ and getting off-world.For Strange, that means it’s time to hang tough and get it on with as much hyper-kinetic violence as they can muster to get clear of the whole mess. And what the Strange can’t get done by violent assault and crazy firefights, they’ll get done by the freaks of Voodoo Platoon - operators who have been changed by the Dark Labs into powerful and unnervingly unnatural asymmetrical weapons.This is the Strange Company. Because in the Strange, it’s always really Strange. Join them - and get ready for full auto combat at the furthest limits of human exploration.
Stowaway
Z.D. Dean - 2019
A chance encounter, on his last mission, sends him hurtling through space on the Unity exploration ship XES01. Surrounded by aliens, Zade must quickly learn to interact with the non-soldiers on the crew. As he tries to earn his place amongst the ship, Zade’s combat prowess quickly earns him a spot as the security officer of the ship. A seat left vacant because of a fatal exchange between the former security officer and the wildlife of a far planet. As Zade begins living the adrenaline filled life of a space explorer, he has to ask himself some very important questions. How does he get back to earth? Does he even want to? Disclaimer: The main character is a combat veteran, so there is some rough language throughout the book.
Weapons Free
Daniel Gibbs - 2021
One vicious attack destroys it all.Reservist Lieutenant Justin Spencer loves every minute of flying fighters through space during his annual two-week tour with the Coalition Defense Force. The job back home isn’t nearly as thrilling as blowing up asteroids with the squadron under his command, but it keeps him close to his wife and daughter. After all, joining the CDF was only for the free education. Justin never expected a battle, much less a war.With one shot across his cockpit, peacetime fades into memory.An unexpected enemy emerges with overwhelming force designed to obliterate the Terran Coalition. The League of Sol has a different name, but it’s the same communist regime that chased away much of Earth’s population hundreds of years ago.Illusions of returning home are shattered in a single instant. Simulated battles become all too real, and it’s full-on engagement or permanent elimination. Death and destruction erupt across the Terran Coalition and leave Justin in a protracted war with only one truth remaining.The battlefield will leave no one unscathed.
Devil Calls the Tune
Chris Maddox - 2020
When his father was called to duty and his mother made an invalid by a plague, Niko learned to survive by his wits. He stole what he needed to stay alive and fought to keep what he stole. Until he got arrested. On the eve of his majority birthday, Niko got laid off from his job and found out the son of the local crime lord had been selling his mom drugs and forcing her to “entertain” his friends. Facing jail time—and almost certain death—for beating the crime lord’s son nearly to death, Niko is forced to join the military to get off world. The terms of his enlistment are such that he can’t quit, so he hopes to fly under the radar and serve his time in a do-nothing job. That’s his plan, anyway. But plans have a way of getting disrupted, and when the Devil is calling the tune, sometimes all you can do is sing along.
Sentinel
Anthony J. Melchiorri - 2021
He chooses the military. For the first time, he thinks he has a shot at a better life. But survival is not guaranteed. Leading an elite team of mech operators, he is deployed to a frozen planet called Ferrous where dangerous relics of a past war lurk beneath the ice and savage creatures prowl the barren wastelands. Scientists on Ferrous are chasing rumors of godlike technologies buried in the ruins of a long-extinct civilization. When Shaw and his team are assigned to protect the researchers, they face an unexpected, merciless new enemy desperate to stop them. An ancient secret has been awakened on Ferrous. The deadly race to claim this terrifying power has only just begun.
Cast Adrift
Christopher G. Nuttall - 2021
Over the years, humans have grown used to their position within the empire, serving as soldiers and spacers for alien masters as well as building a place in the universe for themselves. But now, in the aftermath of a violent interstellar war that shattered the power of the Alphans, humanity has rediscovered its pride. Humanity wants to be free.Facing a war they will lose even if they win, the Alphans give humanity its independence once again. Humanity stands alone in a hostile universe, facing alien threats that regard humans as nothing more than servants - or weaklings, easy meat for armed conquest. And if the human race cannot learn to stand on its own two feet, without its masters, it will rapidly discover that it has traded one set of masters for another ...... And if they lose the coming war, all hope of independence will die with it.
Some Assembly Required
V.R. Tapscott - 2020
But then her life got sidetracked by digging up the AI Pilot of a 140 million year old spacecraft. Now, she's running all over the world looking for spaceship parts, falling in and out of love and trying to keep her friends from thinking she's crazy. Not only that, but the ship she's helping to recover starts sounding more like the Death Star than the Millennium Falcon. When did life get so complicated?
It Ain't Over...
Robert M. Kerns - 2019
Buy a planet and disappear...That's all Cole wanted.He spent thirteen years hiding on the fringes of society, piloting freighters for criminals and building a stash to do just that.But life happens when you're busy making plans.When Cole chooses to save an ejected castaway and stumbles into a crew of his own, he starts down a path that will force him to choose.Will Cole protect those who have become his people? Or will he slip away quietly in the night?
Darkest Hour
John Walker - 2019
Power outages plague key cities and military bases, causing wide spread panic and chaos. Only the Space Agency seems to have a grasp on the situation but with all their combined resources, they’re baffled. Captain Warren Miller races to join his colleagues in the Agency headquarters, hoping to convince his superiors to launch their latest space craft, the battlecruiser Leviathan, which may be able to defy this intruder. In the absence of communication, he hopes a little intimidation might bring about a conversation. But then smaller objects descend upon the Earth, grabbing up people from all over the globe. Captain Miller never makes it back to base, forcing the Agency to scramble for a response. With the weight of an expectant world beating down on them and the alien threat looming above, they have no choice but to engage the enemy or simply witness history in the making.
The Derelict Duty: A Space Adventure
James Haddock - 2019
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.
Mech Warrior: Born of Steel
James David Victor - 2020
Fortunately, that suit is one of the most powerful weapons ever created.A military sci-fi adventure from Amazon All-Star author James David VictorDane Williams barely survived the Exin attack and is faced with a life of pain and torment. With the help of experimental drugs and a robotic suit, he has a chance for a semi-normal life. And as a new Marine in the Mechanized Infantry Division, he has a chance to strike back at the enemy that has caused so much pain and destruction. Can Dane and his fellow Marines fight back and save humanity or is Earth heading for an extinction level event?Mech Warrior: Born of Steel is the first book in the Mechanized Infantry Division series. If you like fast-paced space adventures with engaging characters and exciting battles, you will definitely want to see how the Mech Warriors save mankind, or if they can.