The discovery of a clean energy source ended the world’s reliance on fossil fuels overnight, and years after the resulting wars, a new discovery puts the tenuous world peace at risk; that of faster than light travel. With humanity on the verge of travelling to new solar systems and all the humanitarian and scientific possibilities involved, a discovery by the reconnaissance team turns everything upside down. Join the small team of the reconnaissance mission who fight friend and foe to complete their mission objectives – no matter where it leads them or what the personal cost.

    When Chief Warrant Officer Mike Duggins and his SpecOps team are assigned to a DARPA black site, their reality is changed in the blink of an eye, leaving them in an unrecognizable world, stalked by massive, draconic predators. With only his team, untested Mech Armor, and DARPA techs keeping the cunning predators at bay, they will have to employ every tactic they know in order to survive or risk becoming prey for the hostile carnivores. Can 5 experienced warriors and the DARPA tech team outsmart and outwit an enemy like no other they've seen before and find their way back home? About the Author I'm currently an over the road truck driver, frequently found at the end of a 400 to 500 mile day trying to peck out one to two thousand words on a new book. I'm an Army paratrooper with a background in intelligence operations. I spent six years in Iraq and Afghanistan, in uniform and out. Currently, my greatest challenges are black ice, lake effect snow, and uploading word documents to the ebook format, all equally treacherous endeavors. My greatest hope is to write stories that my readers enjoy.

    Gerry Cardle reluctantly runs the Death Lottery. It's a job he despises, yet one which keeps his name off the list. Until one day, despite his agreement with The Family, his name is inexplicably drawn next.With his world crashing down around him and with just seven days left to live, Gerry realises that the system has been breached by a malicious artificial intelligence. In order to save his life and preserve the safety of those within the city, he must do the unthinkable: flee to the abandoned wastelands outside the dome. Bitter, resolute, and with nothing left to lose, Gerry will have to do whatever it takes to survive--even if it means sacrificing his freedom, and possibly worse--his life.

    But Aurora is disabled by gigantic alien warships and boarded by blue-skin females with fangs and claws. The warriors slaughter the crew in ritual one-on-one combat. The sole survivor is returned to Earth. This Messenger bears a real-time globe device that counts down to an impending attack. That is the way of the Kreelan Empire. For centuries before man have they waged war, seeking a prophesied savior. Soon to be extinct, the ancient species wages their last war, hoping for redemption of sins long past.

    Danger lurks around every corner. Captain Jake Phillips wakes in his crash landed craft and finds Earth transformed into a frightening new world. He faces two immediate threats that will test his survival skills to the limit. Mutated beings prowl the landscape, hunting humans and searching for the remaining resources. Without a plan in place, the battle will be lost and humanity as Jake knows it will be destroyed. Sixth Cycle is a gritty post-apocalyptic story of survival and adventure.

    Their objective is classified, marked only by coordinates leading them into a deserted city at the heart of the fighting. From the beginning, everything possible goes wrong. A missile strike rocks the carrier mid-launch, and only a fraction of the unit reaches the surface alive.Outmanned, outgunned, and scattered, with a hard deadline to orbital bombardment looming, it is up to Drop Commander Tyco Hale to rally his troops and reach their objective. But what they find, hidden deep in the tunneled passages under the city, will change everything about what he fights for and what he believes in. With the unit in tatters and loyalties divided, the choice he makes in the dark will seal all of their fates - and much more besides.

    Except the people who tried to kill him. By 2081, privacy no longer exists. The Lattice enables anyone to re-live any moment of your life. People can experience past and present events—or see into the mind of anyone, living or dead. Most people love it. Some want to destroy it. Colonel Byron Shaw has just saved the Lattice from the most dangerous attack in its history. Now he must find those responsible. But there’s a question nobody’s asking: does the Lattice deserve to be saved? The answer may cost him his life.

    A dangerous game. How far would you go to save your family? In 2114, there’s no such thing as a fair trial. Roland’s father has just been sentenced to death in a sham case controlled by the all-powerful Pinnacle Corporation. He only has one chance to find out the truth: enter Pinnacle’s death-defying Tech Games and do everything he can to survive. Roland must undergo a risky procedure to install the necessary extra-human tech enhancements. Success could mean a shot at a $100 million prize and the evidence he needs to clear his father’s name. If he fails, both of them will surely die… Whatever It Takes is the first episode in the Nano Contestant series of sci-fi serials. If you like futuristic technology, evocative new worlds, and action-packed sci-fi, then you’ll love Leif Sterling’s incredible series.

    After a plague surges out of control, the infected begin to overrun humanity's cities one by one. Forcing those who survive to take orbit. Commander Dalton James has walked many paths. Most of them in search of whiskey. As the fleet discovers a brand new race and its horrible secret, however, Dalton may just be the right man for the job. A rugged brown coat to his back and revolver hanging from his side, Dalton James is in no mood for games. He's always had a distaste for the undead and it just so happens that Dalton is wearing his shit-kicking boots. It's about to be on as high-tech weaponry clashes with the zestful tongue of a man who's had enough.

    These stories explore everything from artificial intelligence to parallel universes to video games, and each story is accompanied by an author’s note exploring the background and genesis of each story.   Howey’s incisive mind makes Machine Learning: New and Collected Stories a compulsively readable and thought-provoking selection of short works—from a modern master at the top of his game.

    They’re wrong.Commander Noa Sato plans a peaceful leave on her home planet Luddeccea ... but winds up interrogated and imprisoned for her involvement in the Archangel Project. A project she knows nothing about.Professor James Sinclair wakes in the snow, not remembering the past twenty four hours, or knowing why he is being pursued. The only thing he knows is that he has to find Commander Sato, a woman he’s never met.A military officer from the colonies and a civilian from Old Earth, they couldn’t have less in common. But they have to work together to save the lives of millions—and their own.Every step of the way they are haunted by the final words of a secret transmission:The archangel is down.

     Spartan is a living legend, a veteran of the Alliance Marine Corps, victor of a multitude of military campaigns including the horrific Biomech War. He is both loved and reviled by friend and foe alike, and now lives out on the fringes of the Alliance. He has fought for money, for his people and for the very survival of his species, and lost everything in the process. But when two of his closest friends are captured supplying weapons to the desperate Byotai settlers of Karnak, the fight becomes personal. The Great Biomech War left millions dead, colonies burned, and cities turned to ash. Millions more continue to endure in the harshest of conditions. The Alliance attempts to restore order, yet already new enemies have begun to strike at will, encouraged by their weakness. Border planets succumb to the raids of warlords, and many doubt how long the peace will last, after it was won at such cost. Since the end of this war, Spartan and his friends have worked to create an elite fighting force based at Taxxu, for use by the Alliance. Using the latest high-energy weapons, armoured fighting suits and a prototype Confederate-class warship, it will be a force unlike any the Alliance has seen before. Spartan will use this and every other asset at his disposal to save his friends. Nothing, not even the entire might of the invading Anicinàbe clans and their fearsome clan leaders, can stop him, even if it means starting his own private war. Lords of War is a futuristic military sci-fi adventure that continues to expand the vast universe of the Star Crusades series that includes Star Crusades: Uprising and Star Crusades: Nexus. Essential and unmissable reading for enthusiasts of the Military sci-fi genre.

    Imagine a drug that flips the valleys and makes them peaks, too. You react now to an event based not on the pleasure or pain that it brings, but solely on the intensity of the emotion created. Pain brings pleasure, grief gives joy, horror renders ecstasy.Now give this drug to a soldier. Tell them to kill. Not in the historically acceptable murder of war, but in a systematic corporate strategy--of xenocide.They will kill. And they will revel in it.Welcome to the world of Scream.Jason Trelayne is a Screamer, a soldier forced to take part in the destruction of entire races. But when Trelayne falls in love with a beautiful Scream Angel, an alien who produces the addictive drug, he sets off a chain of events that pits him and a small group of followers against an empire.An award winning novelette of rebellion, love, and an unlikely hero."A dark and powerful story with a first line that sets the tone for what is to come: 'They stopped beating Trelayne when they saw that he enjoyed it.' (A++)" --Fantasy Book Critic"A visceral work. A true pearl of the fantastic literature. Breath-taking." --Café de Ontem"...the book's most skillfully crafted story...quickly becomes one that holds the reader's attention until the very end." --SpecFicWorld"...remind me of the reasons I love the author's writing: his characterization, attention to detail and recurring themes of love, faith and redemption." --SF Crowsnest Reviews"The story has so many layers that I'm still sorting them out. And like an onion, I'm not sure if I'll ever find the final layer." --Tangent Online"One of those rare ideas that seems at once so perfect and so natural that someone must have come up with it before; but if someone has, I haven't heard about it, and regardless Smith exploits the potential of the idea extraordinarily well here." --Strange Horizons

    All of that changes, though, when Lee leads a team of old friends to virtual glory as the first-ever group to beat Mako Assault, a revolutionary new game that has emerged from nowhere to take the Internet by storm. As a reward for their achievement, the group is flown to meet the game’s mysterious designer and assist in developing the follow-on game Mako 2.0. But what they find when they get there is more than they’d expected…much more. Mako’s intent was never to entertain its players. It was to train them.An epic sci-fi thrill-ride of action, suspense, laughter, and romance, Mako is the story of five ordinary people who will have to rise to the challenge of extraordinary events, driven only by their faith in each other. If they can’t, the game will become very real to more than just themselves—the Earth itself may ultimately be at stake.

    Food, entertainment, safety, security--SynCorp provides it all. In return, the Company requires complete loyalty and obedience to corporate law.The Soldiers of the Solar Revolution claim life under SynCorp is slavery cloaked in comfort. They launch their rebellion, targeting the pillars of corporate production: sabotaging refineries on Mars, shattering Callisto's orbital ring. Meanwhile, brutal pirates siphon off Company resources in the Belt, and hackers tap into citizens' implants, addicting them to fantasies shaped from their own dreams.Besieged on all sides, SynCorp's Five Factions are in retreat. The rebels aim to destroy the Company to free mankind. But does mankind really want to be freed?