Military Opera

Captain Jacob Brown knew something was up when the United Earth Navy sent two capital warships to their small outpost base. Nobody ever came out to Mosler Station unless they had to. Scout Team Obsidian was scheduled to stand down after two lengthy deployments, letting the team recuperate and rest, but leadership had other ideas. A prototype weapon system has been stolen from Earth, and Obsidian is being called up to track it down.

"The Golden Brat", Reinhard von Lohengramm, a military prodigy and admiral of the Galactic Empire, has ambitions beyond protecting the borders or even defeating the empire's enemies. He seeks to overthrow the old order and become a truly absolute - yet benevolent - dictator. His rival, the humble Yang Wen-li of the Free Planets Alliance, wishes to preserve democracy even if he must sacrifice his political ideals to defeat the empire.

The Alliance has been fighting a losing battle against the Syndicate Worlds for over a century. Now, Captain John “Black Jack” Geary, who returned to the fleet after a hundred-year suspended animation, must keep the Alliance one step ahead of its merciless foe… After a series of deadly engagements, the Alliance fleet is severely damaged and its arsenal is running low. Forced to halt in the Baldur Star System to raid the Syndic mines for raw materials, Geary is anxious to get moving again.

With the invading aliens temporarily driven from Human-and-NeHaw-occupied space, all the races are using the pause to recover and rebuild, both friend and foe alike. For the NeHaw, that means pressuring the Earth to allow them to rebuild and rearm their fleet from the Wawobash shipyards, a risk that could easily backfire. For Jake, the lingering concerns of a lost crew with the un-activated Artificial Life installed in the captured saucer still dominate his thoughts.

Terra. For centuries, it has been the Clans’ ultimate prize. As prophesied by their founder, Nicholas Kerensky, the Clan that conquers Terra shall ascend above all others to become the ilClan, ruler over the rest of the Clans. And its leader shall become the ilKhan, and will lead the Inner Sphere into a new era.

Dark secrets lurk in the Fallen Dome of Periculus, and Tempes Sol of the Guild of Light seeks them out to cement his place in the underhive - if he, and Hive Primus itself, can survive what he unleashes.

It was supposed to be a peace conference, designed to bring the galaxy back down from the brink of war. But why they picked Capt. Cain's Bar & Grill as the location of the high-level talks is anyone's guess. And now a deadly conspiracy reveals itself, leaving Adam, along with the other Humans on Liave-3, running for their lives, accused of a political assassination they didn't commit. Now a desperate race is underway to find the alien assassin so they can clear their names and bring the real leaders of the conspiracy to justice. Can they do it? Really? You have to ask.

When Adam Cain's old bounty-hunting friends, Summer, Monty, and Tidus, show up searching for the most-wanted fugitive in the galaxy, their efforts are thwarted by another old friend, Copernicus Smith. The deep-cover spy has his own reason for finding the fugitive, and it's not to earn the million-credit bounty offered for his capture. The elusive alien absconded with billions of credits from his homeworld just before the Mad Aris Kracion irradiated the planet. And now it seems as though the entire galaxy is looking for him.

Beyond the outer boundary of the Core Worlds lies the Frontier. Colonists looking for a life outside the corporate-choked governments cross the border seeking new opportunities, trading security for freedom. In the Frontier, law is absent except for the Marshals. The warrior mystics saved Orin Lashra from a grinding death in the gladiatorial slave pits, recruiting him as a deputy to serve beside them. During a routine tribal negotiation, violence verging on civil war kills the mentor he called mother.

A novella set in the hard-scrabble world of James S. A. Corey's NYT best-selling Expanse series, Strange Dogs follows a family of colonists on Laconia where a new generation of humanity struggles with the profound changes that come with making a home on an alien world. Like many before them, Cara and her family ventured through the gates as scientists and researchers, driven to carve out a new life and uncover the endless possibilities of the unexplored alien worlds now within reach.

During her pursuit of the human traitors known as Nemesis, Mage-Captain Roslyn Chambers ventured deep into alien stars. She destroyed her enemy at the final moment but saw firsthand the might of the alien empire Nemesis called the Reejit. The lost world Chimera has hidden between human and alien space for generations. Roslyn must protect the planet from this waking threat, but both the human and alien colonists see her as a harbinger of nightmares.

Born to oppression, Siena is an ordinary young woman, until an act of defiance leaves her scarred and marked as a rebel. She's sold to Ero, a fallen Krey with a desperate plan to redeem his once-powerful family. He intends to enhance slaves by altering their genetic code, increasing their value through an illegal experiment.

Kylara Vatta is the only daughter in a family full of sons, and her father's only child to buck tradition by choosing a military career instead of joining the family business. For Ky, it's no contest: Even running the prestigious Vatta Transport Ltd. shipping concern can't hold a candle to shipping out as an officer aboard an interstellar cruiser. It's adventure, not commerce, that stirs her soul. And despite her family's misgivings, there can be no doubt that a Vatta in the service will prove a valuable asset. But with a single error in judgment, it all comes crumbling down.

Captain Konrad Bradley commands the decommissioned battleship Oberon, the last remaining Titan of the fleet. Mocked as a flying museum-too expensive, too cumbersome, too old-Bradley and his crew of outcasts from a long-vanished colony lead a dull life on the farthest edge of human hegemony. Bradley's hope to go quietly into the night ends with the arrival of the legendary Strike Group 2 and the delivery of a secret so great it could end the war. That's why Lagunia was chosen for its construction.

When Dash and Leira repair a powerful scanner, it finds something unusual in a distant system - the remains of an ancient battlefield. Custodian tells of a fight lost long ago, leaving drifting debris around the faraway star. But the battlefield isn't forgotten. A human colony has taken hold nearby, and on their world, a single, massive ship has crashed.

As the slavemasters of Mesa plot against the Star Empire of Manticore and the newly liberated slave planet of Torch, Anton Zilwicki and the notorious Havenite secret agent Victor Cachat set off on a dangerous mission to uncover the truth concerning a wave of mysterious assassinations that have been launched against Manticore and Torch.

The universe has gone dark. Interstellar communications has been lost across the Inner Sphere, threatening the corporate giant ComStar - and maybe civilization itself. Risking everything on a last chance for survival, ComStar has kidnapped the engineering genius Tucker Harwell, hoping he can unravel the mystery of the blackout. But Tucker isn’t just working on why it happened...he’s also trying to figure out who’s behind it.

The colony ship Intrepid is falling into a star. The ship's AI has lost control of the engines and core systems. Battling a saboteur who strives to isolate him, his last act is to wake Colonel Tanis Richards from stasis. Tanis finds herself alone on a dying ship, unable to contact the AI. She must discover what has happened and save the Intrepid from burning up in the star's angry red light. Even if she is successful, the journey to the colony world of New Eden is just beginning.

Null Stellarium is more than a shipyard. It's a proving ground steeped with science and engineering designed to push warships faster than ever before, and armed to confront the growing menace of a universe where everything is influenced by a hidden evil. As Van and his crew grow into their new roles, Perry unlocks a memory that reaches into the very beginning of the Tudor family's service nearly a century earlier. But sometimes, the truth is hidden for a reason, and Van must decide—How much does he really want to know? And how far can he take his ship, knowing there's a price on his head?

Captain Sophia Coloma of the Clarke has a simple task: Ferry around representatives from Earth in an aging spaceship that the Colonial Union hopes to sell to them. But nothing is as simple as it seems, and Coloma discovers the ship she’s showing off holds suprises of its own...and it’s not the only one with secrets. "Tales from the Clarke" is a tale from John Scalzi's The Human Division, a series of self-contained but interrelated short stories set in the Old Man's War universe.