The mission is simple. Escort an emissary to an intergalactic peace summit. Try not to get in the way. Lt. Magnus and his 79th Recon Team have certainly handled worse, after all. But when an explosion rocks the tower and sends everyone into a panic, Magnus and his asset find themselves cut off from the rest of the team. Worse still, a dying alien chieftain gives them a priceless drive of intel, marking them for death. The mission has officially changed. With enemies on all sides, Magnus must do everything in his power to protect the emissary and escape the tower.

A secret buried in the Antarctic. A puzzle unsolved for thousands of years. And a Brooklyn-born master gunnery sergeant who's royally pissed that he has to babysit the researchers sent to figure it all out. But when Patrick "Wic" Finnegan finally sees what the team has uncovered, he can't believe his eyes, nor is he prepared for the violence to come. Soon, the portal opens and unleashes a storm of unbridled fury upon humanity.

For four millennia, the 16 planets of the Imperium sector have served as a bastion of peace against the Chaosic Regions. The Imperium's legacy can be attributed to the formidable military power of the Stratus, the enforcers of the Supreme and the Senate. However, as is often the case with empires, it is the smallest cracks that threaten to shatter their foundations. Could this be the beginning of the end?

Born on a forsaken desert planet, Cole Shaw has two options - perish from starvation and disease, or enlist in the New World Republic’s armed forces. 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.

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

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.

A U.S. Army Ranger sniper finds himself on his own and on the move far downrange and beyond the wire in an epic fantasy world filled with deadly monsters and dangerous foes in a total battle royale for glory, hoard—and flat-out survival. Adrift on the Sea of Riddles and lost in a dangerous world of epic fables, Sgt. Thor and his anti-materiel sniper rifle, Mjölnir, must survive brutal pirates, the darkest sorcery, and a catastrophic shipwreck on a strange island steeped in arcane mystery and containing the remains of a lost civilization guarding an ancient artifact of great and terrible power.

My name is Kazimir Wolfe. People call me "Kaz", except they don’t. I never use my real name; it’s too dangerous, for me and for anyone I meet. I’m on the run from the law, who think I killed my aunt, and from whoever did kill her, because they want to finish the job. So, I move around a lot, working construction or whatever job I can find. It’s a lonely life. I don’t let anyone get close...people who get close to me end up dead. Why? I’m a wizard. The world’s only wizard, as far as I know.

Convicted of a minor traffic violation, Rev Pelletier is conscripted into the Perseus Union Marine Corps...for up to a 30-year term of service. Anxious to get back to his civilian life and job, Rev opts for a shorter term as a Marine Raider taking the fight to the enemy. But with extremely high mortality rates, can he and his friends survive until their term of service is over?

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.

Tired of sitting out the war on Psydon in a mobile office lab, Legion Lieutenant Washam agrees to undertake a covert and unsanctioned mission with a band of Republic Recon Marines. Inserted deep behind enemy lines, the strike force uncovers a surprise key to ending a bitter war. Now they must navigate a hostile jungle teeming with murderous alien rebels, pushing themselves to the limits of their abilities, to get this vital intel to Legion Command - if they can survive that long.

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....

Daniel Clay fought across the galaxy as a corporate soldier. He left the violence behind for a life of science, raising a family far from the bloodshed of the Corporation. With his wife, Sarah, and son, Michael, he studied the alien Tyr for years, hidden among their complex societies. Their mission should have ended with the arrival of a replacement team. Instead, the Clays’ corporate overlords choose a death sentence: an invasion fleet to conquer the Tyr.

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.

When Ben Murdock receives a text message offering a fully operational starship for sale, he’s certain it has to be a joke. Already trapped in the worst day of his life and desperate for a way out, he decides to play along. Except there is no joke. The starship is real. And Ben’s life is going to change in ways he never dreamed possible. All he has to do is sign the contract. Joined by his streetwise best friend and a bizarre tenant with an unseverable lease, he’ll soon discover that the universe is more volatile, treacherous, and awesome than he ever imagined.

Earth is a dying planet. To survive, humanity founds the Circuit, a string of colonies across the solar system, dedicated to mining resources vital to preserving what remains of mankind. Here there are no heroes or villains, only those willing to do what's necessary to survive. The New Earth Tribunal, a powerful religious faction, has risen to rule the Circuit. They believe a Spirit within the Earth will one day appear and welcome humanity back home.

Two hundred years ago, aliens invaded Earth. A violent war followed. The enemy won. Some of us escaped, most of us didn’t. On Proxima they flourished - the invasion forgotten. On Earth we floundered - the horror began. Their world is advanced, peaceful, and secure. Our world is broken, savage, and overrun. A new invasion is coming. A hunger that has swallowed half the universe. They don’t care which planet we live on. They want to end us all. But where there is life, there is hope. And where there is hope, there are heroes. This time, vengeance will be ours.

They’ve watched us for centuries through the Rift. They’ve prepared. Invasion is inevitable. The Earth Fleet has known of the Watchers for years, unwilling to share the knowledge with humanity. Now it might be too late. Hidden away from the Fleet, one man is creating a new colony ship destined for the other side of the Rift, but he’s missing a few pieces. Three other people have varied paths to get there. Ace goes from the streets of Earth to the Fleet training facility on the moon. Flint, an ex-Fleet pilot, must decide if a job is worth his life.

Doctor Benjamin Schröder was far from a man of action. In fact, he was a history teacher - chairman of the Castle Rock University history department - and if his life wasn't perfect, it was close. Until, that is the discussion of his star student Elzbietá Abramowski's dissertation on Operation Oz, the Pacific Allies' invasion of Vladivostok, was brutally interrupted. The psychotic episode that turned his entire world upside down struck with absolutely no warning, and it was more terrifying than anything he should have been able to imagine.

The galaxy was once terrorized by the Sturm, a group of “species purists” intent on destroying any human with genetic or cybernetic enhancements. Fashioning themselves as the one true “Human Republic,” the Sturm cut a bloody swath across the stars, killing billions before finally being defeated and driven into the far reaches of Dark Space. Centuries of peace bred complacency. Everyone believed the Sturm had died out in the Dark. They were wrong.

After losing his job and family, Flint Reed finds himself in the middle of a terrorist attack. With nothing but his wits and experience as a former Union police officer, he must do everything he can to stay alive. As he soon discovers, however, there are also hostages, and no one is coming to save them. All hope falls to Flint. But as he fights to navigate the building, the real answers begin to unravel. What are the terrorists really after, and why are they so intent on getting into the vault?

Logan Conner is the son of a king, the heir to the largest of the five star-dominions, and the best mech pilot in the galaxy. His people are plagued by pirates and raiders, surrounded by enemies, and not even his father can fight them all. Logan gives up his position, his rank, even his name, and becomes Jonathan Slaughter, leader of a rough-and-ready band of mercenary mech-jocks bent on taking the battle to the enemy on their own terms.

Earth’s first colony ship finally reaches the target world. The excitement of planetfall is indescribable, but quickly transforms into sick disappointment when they find the atmosphere is a roiling mass of hydrochloric acid, carbon dioxide, and other deadly poisons. They fly onward, seeking better planets. They find them, but none are ideal. The search goes on for a century, then longer still. As they move farther from Earth, aliens discover the intruding ship, and they begin to investigate humanity. They find our species unacceptable.

From BSFA award-winning author Gareth L. Powell comes the first in a new epic sci-fi trilogy exploring the legacies of war. The sentient warship Trouble Dog was built for violence, yet following a brutal war, she is disgusted by her role in a genocide. Stripped of her weaponry and seeking to atone, she joins the House of Reclamation, an organization dedicated to rescuing ships in distress. When a civilian ship goes missing in a disputed system, Trouble Dog and her new crew of loners, captained by Sal Konstanz, are sent on a rescue mission.

The future has amazing technology. Our alien allies have magic. Together, we are building a training system to teach the best of humanity to go to the stars. But the training is monumentally expensive. Stephanie Morgana is a genius, she just doesn't know it. Join her on the first half of her adventure with this collected edition, including the first three megabooks in the Federal Histories series.

Caleb is a former Marine Raider and commander of the Vultures, a search and rescue team that's spent the last two years pulling high-value targets out of alien-ravaged cities and shipping them off-world. When his new orders call for him to join 40,000 survivors aboard the last starship out, he thinks his days of fighting are over. The Deliverance represents a fresh start and a chance to leave the war behind for good. Except the war won't be as easy to escape as he thought.

The galaxy remembers Hadrian Marlowe as a hero: the man who burned every last alien Cielcin from the sky. They remember him as a monster: the devil who destroyed a sun, casually annihilating four billion human lives - even the emperor himself - against Imperial orders. But Hadrian was not a hero. He was not a monster. He was not even a soldier. Fleeing his father and a future as a torturer, Hadrian finds himself stranded on a strange, backwater world.

Soldiers of the Terran Armor Corps wage war across the stars. Wired into mechanized battle suits, they fight the terrifying battles that must be won, no matter the cost. Their deeds are legend, their reputation feared by the enemies of Earth and her allies, but how the Corps forges young men and women into mighty warriors is shrouded by mystery. Roland Shaw lost his parents to war; he volunteers for the Armor Corps to honor their memory and discover just how far he can push himself.

Chief Katherine “Kit” Carson, of the elite Pathfinder Corps, joins the mission as a last-minute replacement, hoping to put a spotty past behind her and build a new life on a brave new world. The expedition arrives on Terra Nova, expecting to join the first wave of colonists, instead they find abandoned cities and are soon faced with a new, terrifying enemy humanity has never encountered before. This publisher pack includes Terra Nova and Bloodlines.

It is the second stage of human colonization - the first age, humanity's initial attempt to people the stars, ended in disaster when it was discovered that Earth's original superluminal drive did permanent genetic damage to all who used it - mutating Earth's far-flung colonists in mind and body. Now, one of Earth's first colonies has given humanity back the stars, but at a high price - a monopoly over all human commerce.

The mission is simple. Escort an emissary to an intergalactic peace summit. Try not to get in the way. Lt. Magnus and his 79th Recon Team have certainly handled worse, after all. But when an explosion rocks the tower and sends everyone into a panic, Magnus and his asset find themselves cut off from the rest of the team. Worse still, a dying alien chieftain gives them a priceless drive of intel, marking them for death. The mission has officially changed. With enemies on all sides, Magnus must do everything in his power to protect the emissary and escape the tower.

A secret buried in the Antarctic. A puzzle unsolved for thousands of years. And a Brooklyn-born master gunnery sergeant who's royally pissed that he has to babysit the researchers sent to figure it all out. But when Patrick "Wic" Finnegan finally sees what the team has uncovered, he can't believe his eyes, nor is he prepared for the violence to come. Soon, the portal opens and unleashes a storm of unbridled fury upon humanity.

A company of Army Rangers is sent on an interstellar colony ship to secure a foothold on a dangerous, alien planet through violence of action. Leaving behind a warring Earth flung headfirst into a conflict of mutual assured destruction, the Rangers and the accompanying crew of first colonists are guided on a 40-year journey by an unprecedented artificial intelligence. But when they emerge from the frigid embrace of cryosleep, they awake to a nightmare, finding themselves greeted by the same ruthless enemy that brought about the ruin of Earth.

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.

Tucked away in a high-tech Tactical Operations Center, inside an isolated safehouse in the Horn of Africa, sits Agency analyst Zack Altringham. He is Kenyan-born, Princeton-educated, badly burnt-out - and condemned by his language and cultural skills to a lifetime of fighting America's shadow counter-terror wars.

In a single act of courage, the young American grunt saves an interstellar soldier from certain death at the hands of a vicious killer. Afterward, she promises to show him the stars. Mark will begin his new life far away from Earth—a life not so different from that of a humble soldier. Out among the asteroids, he learns of swords and honor, starships and empires. He learns what it means to be a Peacemaker. Along the way, he's joined by Perry, his combat AI companion who helps Mark learn how to survive—and earn a living—among the stars.

Contains volumes one and two of the Arisen: Raiders series: Two teams of pipe-hitting special-operations Marines left to die in the fall of North America. One nuclear supercarrier strike group; humanity's last best hope for survival. And seven billion ravening dead guys, rampaging across an overrun planet. For the JFK strike group and its MARSOC guardians, two years of the horrors and glories of Zulu Alpha on the high seas and the fallen world's ports and coasts. Now, their story will finally be told.

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

Captain Axel Finn has spent his life running salvage missions with an alien crew and their war bot. This motley group has found refuge on his ship from their own tumultuous pasts. But little do any of them know, beneath his gentle demeanor, their steadfast captain is far from the peace following, adventure seeking giant of a man they all love. His pacifist ethos meant to safeguard them has edged them to the brink of financial ruin and drawn dangerous enemies.

Tired of sitting out the war on Psydon in a mobile office lab, Legion Lieutenant Washam agrees to undertake a covert and unsanctioned mission with a band of Republic Recon Marines. Inserted deep behind enemy lines, the strike force uncovers a surprise key to ending a bitter war. Now they must navigate a hostile jungle teeming with murderous alien rebels, pushing themselves to the limits of their abilities, to get this vital intel to Legion Command - if they can survive that long.