Military Opera

Titus Briggs is an Earth Defense soldier, a grunt, a decorated war hero—it's all he's ever known. So when a career-ending injury leaves him lying in a hospital bed, missing both legs, he struggles to accept his new reality. He can no longer walk, which means he can no longer fight. That is until a mysterious colonel arrives and offers Titus the opportunity to step into a new kind of war, a new kind of fight. To become a new kind of soldier. Mobile Combat Suits—MOCOMS—represent the next stage in human warfare. They enable soldiers to fight like never before.

When aliens invade Las Vegas, one man is thrust into a battle beyond imagination, fighting the terrifying shock troops of a sprawling galactic empire. To protect a terrified child, he seizes the strange weapon of a fallen hero—an ancient, sentient sword—and is catapulted far into the future with no way back. Now trapped in an alien world, he must master the sword's mysterious power and navigate a deadly game of political intrigue. But time is running out for humanity.

He was the highly decorated Battle Commander who won the Slave War. Power hungry bureaucrats want him dead. They didn’t send enough ships… The Slave War lasted a thousand years. Oman Lim destroyed the enemy with uncanny skill and battlefield ingenuity. Now, power hungry bureaucrats are afraid he will interfere with their arrogant pursuit of greed, power and control. Sending him on a death mission was easy. Having him die there? Not so... His keen and unconventional battle tactics make it difficult to kill him at every turn. They were fearful of his skill and ability. They had a right to...

Having survived the battle on the Ardent Star, Draco makes his way to his home planet of Caledonia. He must figure out what his old friend and arch-enemy General Ibanez is planning before they can strike again. While on planet, they discover evidence that ties the Trade Guild to the attack on the Ardent Star. He, at last, gets his goal of taking the fight directly to the Guild. Striking the first blow, he sets the stage to escalate his desire for revenge into all-out war. Meanwhile, intelligence received from one of the Ardent Star prisoners leads to a hunt for one of Caledonian's most ...

Far from the fury of The Great War, the citizens of the Liberty Federation live in peace and prosperity. The Dawn Empire’s light is fading. Admiral Ikson Koto has one chance to renew the flame before it is extinguished forever. To save the Empire from a slow death, he must destroy the Federation’s fleet in one fell swoop. His plan calls for a brutality that has never been seen before. For Lieutenant Shannon Reeve, the horrors of battle still burn strong in her mind. Her posting to a fighter squadron in the paradise of the Federation’s premier base, Azure Anchorage, should be a welcome...

Admiral John "Black Jack" Geary earned his rank after being revived from cryogenic sleep to lead the Alliance to victory against the Syndicate Worlds. But his superiors question his loyalty to the regime. Now in command of the First Fleet, Geary is tasked with exploring the frontier beyond Syndic space, a mission he fears deliberately puts the fleet--and himself--in harm's way. An encounter with the alien enigmas confirms Geary's fears.

Karen Drayson was a rising star in the Terran Fighter Corps. But being a woman and a star in the Terran military was a problem. Banished to command an old cruiser and sent out on pirate patrol, she’s been recalled home early. After two years away, she and her crew need a rest. But what they need, and expect is there, is not what awaits them. What Karen’s about to find will completely redefine the term, ‘Glass Ceiling’. The Hunter Imperium Universe Is best read in this order: The Spacemage Chronicle Yesterday's Spacemage Today's Spacemage Tomorrow's Spacemage The Hunter Legacy ...

Commander Tanis Richards has finally come into port after a seven month tour on the edge of Jovian space, and she's looking forward to some much deserved shore leave. But Tanis's commanding officer has other things in mind for her. Enfield Technologies has developed a new technique to pair enhanced L2 humans with AIs, and the military wants Tanis to undergo the procedure. Though she feared the worst, after meeting Darla, Tanis realizes that having an AI - especially a fabulously wealthy one - is better than she'd ever imagined. Darla foots the bill for Tanis to enjoy her convalescence.

The crazy king is dead, and in his wake, he's left an entire planet in ruins. Now, it's up to Razar, the son of the next in line for the throne, to restore their once-great empire. But is it even possible? With their people on the brink of devastation, they desperately need a strong leader to guide them through the darkness. Meanwhile, Earth teeters on the edge of its own apocalypse. But with the new empire needing mates, Earth's government sees an opportunity to save many of its females by selling them to the desperate aliens. As a leader, Razar must find a mate first. But there's a catch ...

Three against the stars! A sky pirate armed with superior weapons of his own invention.... First contact with an alien race dangerous enough to threaten the safety of two planets.... The arrival of an unseen dark sun whose attendant marauders aimed at the very end of civilization in this Solar System.... These were the three challenges that tested the skill and minds of the brilliant team of scientist-astronauts Arcot, Wade, and Morey.

Marine Lieutenant Jacob Brown was on borrowed time, and he knew it. He was a rogue element, disobeying orders and pursuing mission goals of his own. His Scout Team had been burned, disavowed by his chain of command and the owner of the stolen ship he was flying was after them to get it back. To make matters even more complicated, the man Jacob had stolen the ship from is an infamous outlaw and mercenary named Jason Burke...his father.

A dead man's quest is never over. Zane Lucas inherits more than his wildest dreams from a man he's never met. The same week, a mysterious cluster of drones appears before him during a random border patrol. Who sent them in the first place? Earth's alliance with the Gral is on the brink of collapse. The forty-three colonies are under duress, and an unknown entity is coming for them.

Karen Drayson just got two shocks. And everyone is celebrating one of them. The hard ceiling is the one all cadets aspire to go through in their careers. But when you’ve done it, you find out why it’s so hard. The threat of being pushed back down into your place doesn’t help things either. When you stand as the gatekeeper to home, what is going on there is a step removed. There’s a line there you just don’t cross. But in Karen’s case, that line is also what separates her from the Soft Ceiling. The Hunter Imperium Universe Is best read in this order: The Spacemage Chronicle ...

It came from deep space. It sent the signal. Now our computers are killing us, helping the enemy drive us into extinction. But some of us refuse to die. We fight back. We learn. Jon Hawkins revives from cryogenic sleep in a drifting SLN battleship. The crew is dead and the main computer has been destroyed. Jon is a soldier, the start of the resistance, the one man with the will to beat the alien death machines that have terminated 1000 races. This is our hour as we face the ultimate evil, the galactic destroyer of life.

Keeping up-to-date with the most buzzworthy and cutting-edge science fiction requires sifting through countless magazines, e-zines, websites, blogs, original anthologies, single-author collections, and more - a task accomplishable by only the most determined and voracious readers. For everyone else, Night Shade Books is proud to introduce the latest volume of The Best Science Fiction of the Year, collecting the finest that the genre has to offer, from the biggest names in the field to the most exciting new writers.

Peacetime can be a rough adjustment for the battle-hardened Merry Band of Pirates.

Especially when aliens don’t get the memo that the shooting is over.

The Allies have solidified their hold on the Large Magellanic Cloud and turn their sights on the Inner Stars and Perseus Arm. With forces spread thin, they must depend on superior technology and quantum entanglement communication to retain their edge. But their enemies have not been idle. Ascended AIs move to destroy Tangel, as Garza and the Orion Widows strike out at both Tangel and Airtha. Deep in the Transcend, Justin readies his new stasis ship for an assault on Vela, and the League of Sentients dithers on whether to join the fight.

Things have gone bad among the colonies. Insurgents are building alien-hybrid armies and planet-killing weapons, threatening to upend the fragile balance of power in Province 921. There's not only trouble in the province—the Core Worlds are igniting as well. The Mogwa have asserted claims upon the Imperial Throne, causing their rivals to move against them. Earth's Hegemony and the rebels are pulled into a conflict that could tear the galaxy apart.

The galaxy is doomed. Monkeys may be clever and too stubborn to give up, but Skippy The Idiot Who Got Played knows the harsh truth: this is a fight he can’t win. The odds are not only stacked against him, he was designed not to win this fight. Maybe he can salvage some faint memory of the civilizations that inhabit the galaxy, but those beings are doomed. Doomed. Including the Merry Band of Pirates.

For a decade, peace has reigned in interstellar space. A tripartite agreement between the Colonial Union, the Earth, and the alien Conclave has kept the forces of war at bay, even when some would have preferred to return to the fighting and struggle of former times. For now, more sensible heads have prevailed. But now, there is a new force that threatens the hard-maintained peace: The Consu, the most advanced intelligent species humans have ever met, are on the cusp of a species-defining civil war. This war is between Consu factions ... but nothing the Consu ever do is just about them.