Bread is a good start for sustenance.Don Eyr and Serana were survivors who came to Low Port – it gave them air, water, a place to stand and a place to make bread. The place to sleep meant they needed a certain amount of safety and to get that they founded a bakery at the corner of Crakle and Toom, brought in others seeking to survive in the midst of the poverty and ignorance, and built a tiny bastion of a self-sufficient community dedicated to raising competent, alert children who understood decency.Low Port toughs tried to break the bakery and a planet-shaking blast from the skies nearly did it in, but the bakery was hope, and people who have hope will fight to keep it.This chapbook collects four stories about sustenance, all about the bakery, its people, and its influence. ″Degrees of Separation,″ ″Fortune’s Favors,″ and "Block Party" are reprints. The novelette ″Our Lady of Benevolence″ appears here for the first time.

    But, as his ship decimates planet after planet, he finds his sympathies swinging toward their defeated enemies. Sergeant Anki Paro, a Luthian Marine, has been anxiously awaiting the call to deploy. As the last line of defense against the crushing Greshian forces, she hopes the time has finally come for her world to stand against tyranny. However, as her society prepares for imminent destruction, questions of misplaced loyalties lead Anki to wonder if the world she is trying to save has any real intentions of surviving. As Brendle's and Anki's worlds collide, they find themselves in an unlikely alliance to try to stop the full might of the Greshian Empire before there's nothing left to fight for. A stolen ship, a mission on the line, enemies at every turn... After four months in hiding, Brendle Quin can't delay his mission any longer. His ship, the Replicade, is held together with failing patches, and he needs to make repairs in a port. Unfortunately, the nearest world with proper facilities is situated deep in Greshian-owned enemy territory. The Greshian colony of Farax is a safe hold for piracy in the region, and none is more vile than Crase Tuin, a man known for trafficking people and weapons across the Alorian Galaxy. He has a reputation as the only pirate never to lose a ship--with the exception of the Replicade. When Crase finds the Replicade, he vows to claim the lives of those who stole her. But Brendle won't go down without a fight. Nothing has stopped the Greshian Empire's expanse, but all hope isn't lost... The illusion of peace shrouds a hidden darkness. Just as the crew of the Replicade are getting settled on a seemingly tranquil world, they encounter a young girl with special abilities--and she's being hunted by a secret, powerful organization that will stop at nothing to have her. When Anki and Brendle intervene to help the girl, they are caught in the organization's crosshairs. The crew must make a decision: give into the looming threat of the organization, or die fighting to protect her. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Commander Ilium Gyl has taken command of a Greshian scout ship. A breach in protocol raises questions of his loyalty to the Greshian Empire, leading to a power struggle as a rebellion sparks in a distant sector of the Alorian Galaxy. His ambitions may cripple the Greshian Fleet, or he might just be the empire's savior. The Alorian Wars is a space opera series, filled with political intrigue and shrouded in mystery, is sure to please fans of "The Expanse", "Dark Matter", "Firefly", and "Killjoys". Join the war today!

    

    

    

    Calidore alive on the Allan Corporation Voyager Manhattan. The spaceship was run like a pirate vessel, part of a multi-corporation fleet racing to claim an alien asteroid vessel that had just appeared beyond the moon. None of us knew the Chin Corporation Voyager had nuclear-tipped torpedoes and planned to murder the lot of us. Well, no one knew but Calidore, and the little genius decided to skip out on a shuttle and take over the alien asteroid for himself. He screwed up bad, so bad you wouldn’t believe me if I told you what happened. The point is, I have to fix the problem, me, Jason Bain the bodyguard, or the Earth can kiss its tush goodbye.

    Ravenous, insatiable, and completely merciless — in decades of space exploration and expansion, nothing like the Swarm has ever been encountered. They swept across the colony world of Cannis One, devouring every resource. Humans, working to build a new outpost on the small world hidden in the binary star system Sirius, were helpless to stop them. Even with the help of the Colonial Space Fleet, every effort to destroy the aliens has failed. Angela Murphy has spent the last decade training to make the National Gymnastics Team. She has the skill, the passion, and the dedication to be an olympic athlete, but she’s outgrown the preferred body shape of most gymnastic competitors. Still, she won’t give up on her dreams, not when there’s still a chance that she could find success. Staff Sergeant Jonathan Cashman leads a fire team of highly skilled Marines in the Colonial Space Fleet. Stationed on Mars, they are ready to face any threat at a moment’s notice. Yet inexplicable orders have them returning to Earth for a top secret assignment at the CSF Research & Development testing grounds. ARC - Assisted Rapid Combat is a breakthrough in military technology, making the extraordinary possible, and forging the ultimate weapon against the Swarm. But it will take the right kind of soldier to become a weapon and prove that the ARC suit can make a difference in the war for Earth’s colonies. Time is running out, and so are humanity’s options for survival. ARC Angel is the latest Military Space Opera from prolific author Toby Neighbors. Combining elements from gaming, strategy, and classic storytelling, ARC Angel is an absolutely riveting novel that will have you on the edge of your seat from the very first page. With his ability to build believable fantasy worlds and authentic characters you can’t help but love and cheer for, Toby Neighbors has created the ultimate Space Marine novel, a story full of Action & Adventure that will keep you turning pages. This book will be your next obsession.

    Nothing like it had ever been seen before---a twenty-billion square mile blot on the surface of the sun, and growing. Dr. Morris Tyler at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff has a theory that might explain what's happening, and the news isn't good. Which is why he's under surveillance after having been told to keep his theory to himself. Keeping his theory under wraps isn't easy, not when a gorgeous reporter for Parsec magazine, Gail Dionne, has him in her sights, out to get a story. Tyler's well-ordered world spins out of control when all these forces converge on him, and the world begins to grow colder as the sun . . . goes . . . out.

    She’d loved the thrill of staring off the ship’s stern, watching the Sun slowly shrink, peering as closely at the white-hot thrusters as she could before Virgil shut off her visor. She’d loved looking forward at Acadia’s magnetic scoop, trying to catch some glimpse of the invisible cone that was funneling the vacuum’s stray atoms into its antimatter furnace. In those days, she’d even grinned at the dizzying challenge of spacewalking on a rotating cylinder. But that was five years ago . . .Acadia — the latest work of fiction from critically acclaimed author, James Erwin (Rome, Sweet Rome) takes to the far reaches of space to weave a tale of intrigue and suspense among the stars.