Book picks similar to
The X-Ship by Vaughn Heppner


science-fiction
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First Strike


Scott Moon - 2020
    It's a choice.The United Galactic Government is mired in a decade-long war for control of a key planet. Weakened by overextension and political intrigue, they could lose everything.When a child of privilege gives up everything to enlist and fight for what is right, he learns what it means to become part of a team. He encounters refugees, aliens he never expected to empathize with, and the loss of comrades. In the end he must develop the courage to stand up, not only to aliens and governments, but his own family.

A War to the Knife


Rick Partlow - 2017
    But the bloody war with the alien Tahni has hit close to home and Tyler wants to join the military, something his powerful mother won’t allow. Desperate to escape her control, Tyler changes his identity to Randall Munroe, a product of the poverty-stricken Underground, and enlists in the Marines. There he flourishes, becoming a member of an elite Force Recon unit and striking deep behind enemy lines. But when his platoon is assigned to take back the colony on Demeter from the Tahni, the mission falls apart, most of his comrades are killed and Munroe is wounded, separated from his unit and left for dead on an enemy occupied world. With no other choice, he organizes the civilian colonists into a resistance movement and begins fighting against the occupation with limited supplies and no support. As the situation becomes more and more desperate, what began as a high-tech, interstellar conflict will become a war to the knife…

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.

Lost Marine


James David Victor - 2019
    The only problem: he’s now lost in space looking for the remnants of humanity. Just when he thinks he’s found help, TWO new hostile alien races enter the picture. Can Jack find the rest of humanity or will he forever be lost in space, fighting to survive? Lost Marine is the first book in the Jack Forge, Lost Marine series. If you like fast-paced military science fiction, you will love watching Jack fight for the freedom of all.

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.

Exodus


John Walker - 2021
    A mindless alien race has swept across the colonies, consuming structures and people along the way. As humanity stands on the brink of destruction, we have one hope to preserve what’s left of our culture and very lives. The Passage.One of the greatest scientific achievements of humanity, a gateway that will hyper-accelerate our faster than light drives so we can cover an unimaginable distance. A new home waits beyond, one far from our aggressors. But can we escape the desolation of our old empire before it’s too late?

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.

Broken Worlds: The Complete Series


Jasper T. Scott - 2019
    SCOTTAll three books of the bestselling Broken Worlds series now available for one low price for a limited time. Broken Worlds takes you on a tense thrill-ride through a frightening future with new mysteries and twists on every page. Fans of Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica will love this new series: a dark, gritty space opera with unexpected twists, complex characters, and nightmarish antagonists.In this set:Broken Worlds: The AwakeningBroken Worlds: The RevenantsBroken Worlds: Civil WarSynopsis From Book One...THEY WENT TO SLEEP ON EARTH, BUT WHERE DID THEY WAKE UP?Darius Drake is desperate to save his daughter, Cassandra. So desperate he's willing to risk their lives in cryo-sleep to give her a future. But the dark, freezing vault where he wakes up is nothing like the luxurious Florida hospital he remembers. Everything about this place is alien to him, even the language. Little does he know how alien it really is.Darius and his daughter go exploring their new surroundings with a few others from the cryo pods, and they soon discover frozen, mutilated bodies everywhere. The dead are wearing strange uniforms, and they seem to have used some kind of energy weapons to defend themselves, but it wasn't enough. Adding to the mystery, all the doors of the facility have been ripped open, and there are claw marks around them--but what could shred through reinforced metal like paper?The answer to that question proves more terrifying than any of them could have guessed. There's a war raging, and they've woken up in the middle of it.

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 Lazarus Protocol


David Bruns - 2018
    Monster hurricanes … freak sandstorms … roasting wildfires. Species disappear every day. Is humanity next?Though some believe our future lies among the stars, the American President funds the Lazarus Protocol—a last-ditch attempt to reverse Earth’s climate crisis through geoengineering. But the New Earth Order—a mysterious league of reactionary activists with sleeper agents around the world—pursues another outcome: the subjugation of mankind to nature itself.A brilliant billionaire who wants to save the world. A lunar engineer called home to bury her father. A disgraced veteran haunted by yesterday's mistakes. A US Army colonel, desperate to save as many people as possible.Four lives. One planet. And one last chance to save it…

Ganymede Wakes


Joshua T. Calvert - 2021
    After many years in space, one of the robot probes returning with samples from the farthest reaches of the solar system crashes on Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, destroying a research station there. After contact with Ganymede is lost, a second sample reaches Earth, and quickly sets off a struggle for control of a substance that defies the understanding of all the world’s scientists.Amid the ensuing chaos, astronaut Rachel Ferreira and a team of leading scientists board a ship bound for Ganymede to discover the reason for the disturbing silence. They leave behind an Earth erupting in conflict, as a team of mercenaries struggles to get its hands on a possibly alien technology, in the process uncovering a conspiracy that could shake the very foundations of the future.

Revelation: Ascendancy: Book 1


D. Ward Cornell - 2019
    Newly edited and released. Michael Baker is a 35 year old, natural born, American citizen from Texas, a successful entrepreneur and amateur astronomer. The scientific community mocks him when he publishes the time and coordinates where a supernova will occur. When it occurs, people start wondering who Michael is. The day after his third supernova prediction stunningly comes true, Michael abruptly takes over every television and radio in the world and announces that he is the Ambassador to Earth from the Intergalactic Confederation of Planets. Earth is facing multiple grave threats and must take immediate action, if there is any hope for humanity’s survival. The Confederation has come to help and is willing to intervene, IF world leaders will accept the help the Confederation offers. Set initially on the Big Island of Hawaii, the story circles the globe in search of enough allies to allow the Confederation to work on humanity’s behalf. It is a riveting epic of alien first contact that features uplifting and sometimes humorous accounts of humanity’s first interactions with intelligent extraterrestrial life, and it reveals as much about the people of Earth as it does of those who have come to save it. If you like Arthur C. Clarkes' Childhood’s End, or the movie Avatar, then you will love this book. It tells the story of the aliens walking among us, and their purpose here on Earth. Rich characters, touching stories, advanced technologies… an intelligent, but relentlessly optimistic, book that appeals to Science Fiction fans and anyone that enjoys a good read. It is the first book in the Ascendancy series, which tells the story of humanity's ascent into intergalactic civilization.

Real-Time Starcommander


Tracy Gregory - 2021
    While Evan works hard to get the pros to notice him, it's very different eyes that are captivated by Evan's progress.The Kirran Hegemony is at war. Outclassed at every step, the aliens turn to the most warlike race they know—humanity! Abducted from Earth, Evan finds himself fighting for his life, using his skills to command Hegemony forces in desperate battle.Now, helped by fellow humans, Evan must prove victory can be grasped from the jaws of impossible odds.

Wings of Honor


Craig Andrews - 2021
    Their success is unparalleled, and for years they have held the invading Baranyk at bay. But when the alien enemy develops a new weapon that renders the fleet's drone fighters inoperable, humanity is on the verge of destruction.Callan "Coda" O'Neil joined the Terran Fleet Academy with dreams of becoming a prestigious drone pilot and restoring honor to his disgraced family. Fleet Command, however, has other ideas.To counter the alien weapon, Commander Chadwick Coleman, a legendary pilot from the early days of the Baranyk War, is assembling an experimental new squadron that will place real pilots in the cockpit of real starfighters. And he wants Coda to be part of it.With the enemy pressing in, and forced to train under impossible conditions, Coda and his fellow wingmen must learn to fly as one. Failure means the destruction of the human race.And time is running out.

Recon


Devon C. Ford - 2018
    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.