In the 23rd Century, the Superpowers of Earth vie for control of occupied space and the vast resources of the colony worlds. Darius Jax is a senior officer and hero of the Marine Corps, veteran of countless battles fought throughout occupied space. But once he was a raw private fighting his first battle on a planet so deadly, so hellish, its own occupants called it Tombstone. This is his story, before fame, before glory. The fighting on Tombstone is brutal and deadly, and Jax must find his inner strength if he is to survive.

Terrence Compton is one of Earth's greatest admirals, a warrior almost without equal. Alongside his oldest friend and brilliant colleague, Augustus Garret, he and his forces saved Earth from invasion by the robotic legions of the First Imperium's insane computer Regent. There is just one problem. The First Imperium was held back by the disruption of the sole warp gate connecting the two domains...and Compton and 300 of his ships are trapped on the wrong side, surrounded by the Regent's vast fleets and cut off from Earth.

The Confederation has fought three wars against the forces of the totalitarian Union. Three generations of its warriors have gone off to war, held the line against the larger, more powerful enemy. Now the fourth conflict is imminent, and the Confederation's navy is on alert, positioned behind the frontier, waiting for the attack it knows is coming.

An industrial hell. The foulest and most decrepit slum on Parsephon. A nest of human misery, where hope is word long forgotten, and the dead are carted away every day. It is the worst pit in the Confederation’s great industrial machine known as the Iron Belt. Among the millions born into misery, poverty, and despair under the dark and smoky haze that covers the planet, Andromeda Lafarge is unique. One lost soul among billions, she is tough, relentless, determined to get out, to escape, to blaze her own trail, and to make a name for herself across the stars.

Blackhawk: a wanderer, a man running from a dark and sinister past. A genetically-engineered warrior, a capable and accomplished killer, he is also a lost soul, a man who has fled to the deepest reaches of space seeking his true identity. The Far Stars: the farthest extent of human habitation in the galaxy, a sector of a hundred inhabited worlds, it is a dangerous expanse full of pirates, mercenaries, and cutthroats.

Orcs. Trolls. Wraith riders. Dark wizards. Together, they form an unstoppable force. Or so they thought. Dark Army...meet the US Army Rangers. When a Joint Task Force of elite Rangers are transported to a strange and fantastic future where science and evolution have incarnated the evils of myth and legend, they find themselves surrounded, pinned down, and in a desperate fight for their very survival - against nightmares of flesh and blood made real. Which means only one thing. It’s time to Ranger up and stack bodies.

Seventy years ago, the interstellar supercarrier Ark Royal was the pride of the Royal Navy. But now, her weapons are outdated and her solid-state armour nothing more than a burden on her colossal hull. She floats in permanent orbit near Earth, a dumping ground for the officers and crew the Royal Navy wishes to keep out of the public eye. But when a deadly alien threat appears, the modern starships built by humanity are no match for the powerful alien weapons.

We were fighting on the wrong side of a war we couldn't win. And that was the good news. The Ruhar hit us on Columbus Day. There we were, innocently drifting along the cosmos on our little blue marble, like the native Americans in 1492. Over the horizon come ships of a technologically advanced, aggressive culture, and BAM! There go the good old days, when humans only got killed by each other. So, Columbus Day. It fits. When the morning sky twinkled again, this time with Kristang starships jumping in to hammer the Ruhar, we thought we were saved.

Out of the blue, a young Space Fleet officer's dream becomes reality: He's made captain of a starship. Just in time for the return of humanity's most terrible enemy, after 50 years of peace. To survive against this enemy, Captain Tad Thatcher will have to do more than learn how to become an effective commander, or how to wrangle his wayward crew. He will need to reinvent space combat. From scratch.

In the 20th century Earth sent probes, transmissions, and welcoming messages to the stars. Unfortunately, someone noticed. The Galactics arrived with their battle fleet in 2052. Rather than being exterminated under a barrage of hell-burners, Earth joined their vast Empire. Swearing allegiance to our distant alien overlords wasn't the only requirement for survival. We also had to have something of value to trade, something that neighboring planets would pay their hard-earned credits to buy. As most of the local worlds were too civilized to have a proper army, the only valuable service Earth could provide came in the form of soldiers....

Get ready to experience two more origin stories in the Backyard Starship universe.

In the wilds of a jungle planet, the Legion fights in brutal combat as Republic marines fly their SLICS from one tragedy to the next. H292, a repurposed warbot, shows the heart of a hero as he wades into the battle not to destroy - but to save.

After two brutal, bloody struggles for their very existence against implacable alien foes, humanity is victorious, but not at peace. As distrust and accusations consume the political discourse between the two major factions, the Eastern Star Alliance military has already begun executing small raiding missions into United Terran Federation space. The Federation fleet, still reeling from the last war, is in no shape to try and protect its own borders.

Kyle Riggs is snatched by an alien spacecraft sometime after midnight. The ship is testing everyone it catches and murdering the weak. The good news is that Kyle keeps passing tests and staying alive. The bad news is the aliens who sent this ship are the nicest ones out there.

Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations. Yet he toils willingly, trusting that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children. But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and lush wilds spread across the planet. Darrow—and Reds like him—are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class.