Showing results by narrator "A.A.C." in All Categories

Disaster. There was no other word to describe how Operation Olympic had changed in a flash from a triumph to the worst failure the Merry Band of Pirates had ever experienced. A failure that meant the fight was over. Unless the Pirates could perform a miracle, without Skippy.

Hannibal Barca was a Carthaginian general, considered one of the greatest military commanders in history. Hannibal lived during a period of great tension in the Mediterranean Basin, when the Roman Republic established its supremacy over other great powers such as ancient Carthage and the Greek kingdoms of Macedonia, Syracuse, and the Seleucid Empire. One of his most famous achievements was at the outbreak of the Second Punic War, when he marched an army which included war elephants from Iberia over the Pyrenees and the Alps into Italy.

After nearly eighteen months at Basgiath War College, Violet Sorrengail knows there's no more time for lessons. No more time for uncertainty. Because the battle has truly begun, and with enemies closing in from outside their walls and within their ranks, it’s impossible to know who to trust. Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders. But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.

Everyone expected Violet Sorrengail to die during her first year at Basgiath War College – Violet included. But Threshing was only the first impossible test meant to weed out the weak-willed, the unworthy, and the unlucky. Now the real training begins, and Violet’s already wondering how she’ll get through. It’s not just that it’s grueling and maliciously brutal, or even that it’s designed to stretch the riders’ capacity for pain beyond endurance. It’s the new vice commandant, who’s made it his personal mission to teach Violet exactly how powerless she is – unless she betrays the man she loves.

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders. But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them. With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success.

As a secret Omega living as a Beta, I’ve worked hard to build a good life and escape my past. So when I land a job as the assistant to three powerful Alpha billionaires, I focus on keeping my head down—despite the way their intoxicating scents make my head spin. Everything is going fine… until the day my blockers fail and I start perfuming. I’m terrified that my three bosses are going to turn me over to the authorities so that I can be presented as an Omega and courted by a pack. But they don’t. Instead, they make me an offer: one year of marriage.

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.

It might all change in eleven seconds. This inspiring and poignant book takes listeners on a trip through the life-changing experiences that permanently change a person's path. These eleven seconds perfectly capture the core of the human experience and the immense influence of a single moment, whether it's a short decision, an unexpected encounter, or a sudden event. 11 Seconds Change My Life is a compelling story that explores the core of crucial life events.

Books has settled the Smoky Mountains following the events of the Territory Wars. His freehold doesn't have much worth trading that neighboring settlements need, but he and many other inhabitants don't necessarily consider this a bad thing. The low economic desirability of their freehold is what has allowed them to avoid fighting.

The Merry Band of Pirates offered the bad guys a ceasefire. We won’t mess with them, if they don’t mess with us. Easy, right? No. The aliens chose to do things the hard way. So, the Pirates are racing around the galaxy to clean up the threat to Earth. The infant UN Navy has their own mission with the Alien Legion: Get humanity some allies in the fight. And the Ethics & Compliance Office might have to do something...ethical. Unless they can find a way around it.

The master at his scarifying best! From heart-pounding terror to the eeriest of whimsy - tales from the outer limits of one of the greatest imaginations of our time! Trucks that punish and beautiful teen demons who seduce a young man to massacre; curses whose malevolence grows through the years; obscene presences and angels of grace - here, indeed, is a night-blooming bouquet of chills and thrills.

The battle-scarred star carrier Flying Dutchman is finally on her way back to Earth, after an exceptionally successful series of missions that have once again saved the world. The ship needs a serious refit, and her exhausted crew just wants a break from constant clandestine warfare against a vicious and superior enemy. Wishes come true, right? Not for the Merry Band of Pirates.

While the crew of the starship Flying Dutchman have been trying to assure that hostile aliens do not have access to Earth, the UN Expeditionary Force has been stranded on the planet they nicknamed "Paradise". The Flying Dutchman is headed back out on another mission, and the UN wants the ship to find out the status of the humans on Paradise. But Colonel Joe Bishop warns that they might not like what they find, and they can't do anything about it without endangering Earth.

When her week begins, Rarity expects the biggest mystery she'll need to solve is how a rare first edition of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland ended up in her bookstore bathroom. But after book club member Shirley tells her that her husband George, who has dementia, is the prime suspect in a nursing home murder, Rarity feels as if she's stepped through the looking glass.

The Merry Band of Pirates stopped the enemy from stealing a Sentinel, and destroyed its Elder starship, so why weren’t the Pirates planning a victory party? The enemy was not what they thought it was. It was much, much worse.

Homicide Detective Max Rupert never fully accepted his wife's death, even when he believed that a reckless hit and run driver was the cause. But when he learns that in fact she was murdered, he devotes himself to hunting down her killers. Most of his life he had thought of himself as a decent man. But now he's so consumed with thoughts of retribution that he questions whether he will take that last step and enact the vengeance he longs for.

After the Renegade mission by the crew of the starship Flying Dutchman, the UN Expeditionary Force thought Earth was safe for hundreds of years, at least. After there was trouble on the home front and the president had to authorize a nuclear strike on an American city, UNEF decided they did need the Merry Band of Pirates again. So, the Flying Dutchman is sent out on a simple recon mission. But for the pirates, nothing is ever simple, and their mission will become Armageddon.

The elite crew of the pirate ship UNS Flying Dutchman had a simple mission: determining whether the Thuranin are sending another starship to Earth. Along the way, they became sidetracked by securing a future for the UNEF troops on the planet Paradise. When asked whether Earth was now safe, their ancient alien AI responded "Not so much"...now they have to deal with the consequences.

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.