Hard Space Opera

First in a brand-new Foreigner trilogy by Hugo Award-winning author C. J. Cherryh. Tracker is the 16th installment of C. J. Cherryh's acclaimed Foreigner series.

Many millennia ago, the human race was enslaved by the An - a fearsome alien people whose cruel empire once spanned the galaxies, until they were defeated and consigned to oblivion. But a research mission to the planet Ishtar has made a terrifying - and fatal - discovery: The Ahanu, ancestors of the former masters, live on, far from the reach of Earth - born weapons and technology ... and tens of thousands of captive human souls still bow to their iron will.

Warden Torin Kerr has put her past behind her and built a life away from the war and everything that meant. She's created a place and purpose for others like her, a way to use their training for the good of the Confederation. She has friends, family, purpose. Unfortunately, her past refuses to grant her the same absolution. Big Yellow, the ship form of the plastic aliens responsible for the war, returns. The Silsviss test the strength of the Confederation. Torin has to be Gunnery Sergeant Kerr once again and find a way to keep the peace.

Lee's parents and their business partner, Gordon, found a class A habitable planet. They thought their quest as explorers was over and they'd live a life of ease. But before they could return and register their claim, Lee's parents died doing a survey of the surface. That left Lee two-thirds owner of the claim and their partner Gordon obligated by his word with her parents to raise Lee. She had grown up aboard the ship with her uncle Gordon and he was the only family she'd ever known. Him adopting her was an obvious arrangement to them.

While recovering from the physical and emotional wounds he sustained in Challenger's Hope, Nick Seafort is named as the liaison between the wealthy planters of Hope Nation and the United Nations Navy. The lurking, acid-spewing, fish-shaped aliens are a real threat, and everyone is on edge. When the fleet returns to Earth, dissent grows among the people of Hope Nation, who feel abandoned by the military and left at the mercy of the alien horde.

The Ixa smashed the galaxy to bits before they were defeated. Captain Husher has sounded the alarm in the decades since: the Ixa’s creators will return to finish the job. But unlike Husher, the galactic government didn't battle the Ixa, and the politicians have convinced themselves that maintaining peace means limiting the ability to wage war.

Centuries after a war with the Mutes, the first aliens to be encountered by humankind, a startling new discovery in the far reaches of the Orion Nebula appears. On a planet with conditions favorable to life, explorer vessel The Columbia comes across a small town seemingly inhabited by an intelligent species not yet discovered. But when a highly publicized follow-up mission is sent to make contact mere months later, the entire town has vanished, leaving no trace—or such is presumed to be the case until Alex Benedict and his archaeological crew show up to investigate.

Murdered parents and a crippled spaceship. That’s what pirates left for thirteen-year-old Meriel Hope and the orphans from the Light Speed Merchant Princess. But according to the authorities, pirates didn’t exist, which defined Meriel as crazy. They buried the investigation and Meriel’s past with it. Ten years later, Meriel has struggled to build a life for herself as a Cargo Chief on the Tiger working a circuit between Procyon A and Wolf 359. She’s kicked the mandatory drugs that controlled the nightmares and flashbacks and trained to Marine-3. And with five other marines on board,...

Three stars, three worlds, three civilizations...one massive war. In a triple star system, not all planets are equal. When the Demon Star swings closest in her orbit, the Insectoids always invade. They raid the inner worlds with grim regularity, riding hordes of stealth ships in ever-growing waves. Their mission is to destroy all opposition - alien, human or otherwise. Cody Riggs, lost among an endless chain of interstellar rings, flies his task force of starships into the middle of an eternal struggle for survival.

On the far side of known human space, the Marines are under siege, battling the relentless servant races of the Sh'daar aggressor. With a task force stripped to the bone and the Terran Confederation of States racked by dissent, rogue Admiral Alexander Koenig must make the momentous decision that will seal his fate and the fate of humankind.

Trapped on an alternate Earth, the combined crews of a crashed Russian spaceship, a British expeditionary force and a group of strays from the future must work together to survive, escape and discover what led them to this point. All are from parallel universes where small changes in history led to different realities, and the tensions between the groups are rising.

The year is AD 7000. The human species is extinct - for the fourth time - due to its fragile nature. Krina Alizond-114 is metahuman, descended from the robots that once served humanity. She’s on a journey to the water-world of Shin-Tethys to find her sister Ana. But her trip is interrupted when pirates capture her ship. Their leader, the enigmatic Count Rudi, suspects that there’s more to Krina’s search than meets the eye.

Restoring the empire that had been destroyed 45 years earlier, Emperor Colin finds problems in the genocidal Achuutani and in his children, Sean and Harriet, who have been marooned on a hostile planet.

Aldo Cassidy and his team are tasked with recovering an important relic from an alien station. As they arrive, they find signs of a battle, leaving the entire system in disarray. Without good intelligence, they must take a chance to secure a prize capable of unifying their cultures, or unveil secrets dark enough to keep them apart forever. The planet Constance becomes a hotbed for activity. As Justiciar Caden Raines arrives to rescue a hostage, Sam Levine fights for survival after his ship crashed in the desert. Both men race against time, with the fate of many hanging in the balance.

Sometimes, the right man in the wrong uniform can make all the difference. Ethan Hawk faces an unexpected challenge when the real Elias Thorne confronts him upon the arrival of reinforcements at Janus. In a shocking twist, Thorne reveals that he has been working undercover to investigate a revolutionary faction threatening to destabilize the Imperium from within. Recognizing Ethan's unique position and the trust he has built with the crew of the Excalibur, Thorne enlists Ethan to continue the deception, allowing him to operate in the shadows. At the same time, Ethan maintains the illusion ...

The haiman Orlandine, charged with safeguarding lethal Jain tech swirling inside an accretion disc located in the distant reaches of space, has weaponized a black hole to eliminate the threat. But others are suspicious of her motives, and both the Polity AIs and the leaders of the alien prador kingdom dispatch fleets of warships in anticipation of conflict. As the black hole continues to eat its way through the planets in the accretion disc, making its way towards a dead sun, it becomes clear the disc has been hiding a larger secret.

Where the cream of humanity has left for the outworlds, leaving the rest behind; where genetically redesigned T-rexes have supplanted pit bulls; population control measures have created an underclass of Urchins, unlicensed children who have no rights - not even the right to exist; where wireheads with chips in their brains live vicariously through the downloaded experiences of others; and where the UN has been turned into a brothel known as Dydeetown, peopled by clones of famous personalities from history and entertainment.

Many unanswered questions remain about the terrible Eugenics Wars that raged on Earth during the 1990s, an apocalyptic conflict that brought civilization to the brink of a new dark age. Centuries later, as Capt. James T. Kirk and the crew of the Starship Enterprise are forced to defend a colony of genetically enhanced humans against Klingon aggression and sabotage, Kirk must probe deeper into the past - and into the glory days of one of the greatest adversaries he has ever faced.

The tribal Braxan - created to become the ultimate warriors. The Azeans - raised to master the power of the mind. Two civilizations fighting an endless war over a long-forgotten cause. Now, after a century and a half, the legacy of their greatest military leaders threatens to tear apart both empires.

Humanity had appeared to fend off the Sh'daar assault once and for all, though they never learned why the alien empire was driven to halt Earth's advancement toward technological Singularity. But in this war of worlds, victory is always elusive. And now a new battle begins. After 20 years of peace, not one but two fragile truces are unraveling. Alexander Koenig, the former Navy commander whose heroics forced the Sh'daar into submission, has won a second term as President of the United States of North America. But pursuing his mandate - sovereignty from the centuries-old Earth Confederation - becomes a risky proposition....