Our young heroes must discover the evil plot, warn the galaxy, and still somehow survive! Young Lieutenant Jarra Carsean, newly graduated from the Rim Patrol Officer Candidate School, is given a small ship and a crew of misfits, straight out of District Specialist Training. Can their young team come together and survive their first mission, a mission that becomes a much more difficult and risky endeavor than anyone suspects it will be? What they discover has huge ramifications for the whole galaxy and they will have to use every skill their team has to survive. Jarra carries with her a big secret that might well jeopardize her team or it may save them all and the Galactic Empire too. >>The first in the Far Future Sci-Fi Thriller series, Defenders of the Rim: Beginnings is a far future sci-fi thriller in a world that combines science that just might be possible many years in the future with a Galactic Empire, rebels and aliens. Sign up for my Reader's List at http://randalsloan.com/farfuture/

    Soar on imagination's wings and see them all: from the ancient legends to the modern creations; from the firebreather that battled Beowulf to the delightful beasts of Jane Yolen and Terry Pratchett. Everything you ever wanted to know about the most fabulous creatures ever to inhabit our collective memory is here, and more, snorting fire and phosphine gas and ploughing the waters of primordial chaos. The Babylonians knew him, the Sumerians, the ancient Egyptians. He is found not only in the Bible but in China, in the Norse sagas and the lost myths of the Americas. Drawing on sources from myth, folklore, and novels, the authors offer a compendium on dragons--similarities and differences, the dragon of the hero quest, humorous dragons, cuddly dragons, and more. But Anne McCaffrey is a storyteller, not an encyclopedist; and dragons are wary of dry and dusty places, like lecture rooms and libraries. So this book begins (as must all good tales) with a mysterious visitor and ends (as do all true dragon encounters) with an adventure almost too wondrous for words to tell.

    Swiftly, the aliens take control of Britain’s cities and force the remainder of the British military to go on the run. With the government destroyed, the population must choose between fighting and collaborating with the alien overlords. This is truly Britain’s darkest hour. Caught up in these events are a handful of ordinary people, struggling to survive. The Prime Minister, forced into hiding, and an unscrupulous politician looking to find fame and power by serving the aliens. Soldiers fighting an insurgency and senior officers trying desperately to find the key to driving the aliens away from Earth; police officers faced with a choice between collaboration or watching the aliens brutalise the civilian population. And ordinary citizens, trying to survive a world turned upside down. But resistance seems futile and the aliens appear unstoppable – and the entire population is caught in the middle. As the alien grip tightens, the last best hope for freedom lies with those who will never surrender...and are prepared to pay any price for the liberation of Earth.