The town wall in the middle of a frigid January night is no place for a scared kid to be. But Mikey understands his town faces many threats. The man who approaches the perimeter wearing a dark, ragged cloak surely can't be all that dangerous. But he gets the creeping sense that this is no ordinary stranger.

Turlock and Marve go to Tramin, a Podunk town, to let things cool off for a while. They stumble across the perfect assassin. Worse yet, Turlock gets a text informing him he'll be killed in five minutes.If he can survive, he and Marve must find out where the killer came from--and what it will take to keep more of them from being produced.

Having killed for a total stranger, Imperial soldier Toval must now run for his life. He can navigate the forest as skillfully as any wolf, but the rebel woman fleeing with him cannot. If only he weren't infatuated, he would do the smart thing and leave her to her own fate. Without weapons or coin, they must avoid the nightmarish Black Cloaks and escape the Empire.

Hal's got a dream job, making exciting advances with cutting edge technology. True, he's complicated matters by starting up an affair, but can you blame a guy who's stationed on a barren planet several light-years from his family? The developments he's seen with nanoscale robots and their impact on cellular growth is worth the sacrifice and risk.At least, it was until the risk made itself all too clear.Hal was attracted to his coworker because her brilliance equaled his own. ...

The Narixan people have rebelled, but the Empire has quickly crushed them. As punishment for their insurrection, they must be scattered throughout the vast imperial lands. Toval, one of many soldiers tasked with enforcing the decree, is part of a unit responsible the remnants of the Narixan royal family, and he can't ignore Princess Indrah. Can he resist her charms, or will she turn him into a rebel as well?

Farncis is skilled at deception and trickery, but he might have gone too far this time. Not only is he trying to swindle the Emperor, but he's impersonating one of the most powerful and ill-tempered mages in the land to do it. If only he hadn't fallen for Princess Mindra, he might have set his odds for success at fifty-fifty. Now he must push his charm and quick wit to the limit to avoid a very unpleasant and drawn-out death. Will his talents, and help from an unlikely source, be enough to...

For the first humans on Mars, everything is a challenge. But nobody on the team expected the most vicious struggles to be against the politicians back home. Mission funding is threatened, and asking for fresh supplies may cause the plug to be pulled on the whole thing. This is no time for Curtis to discover he has feelings for Molly. And it's certainly no time to discover a crisis that may leave the new Martians too dead to care about their budget.

Azad and his brother Mikar are about to become very rich men...provided the mob doesn't come for their money right away and the gigawatts of electricity they're playing with don't fry them. All they have to do is go where no human can survive and make a trade with aliens they've never met. Azad might be more optimistic about their chances if he'd had time for a trial run.

The crew of the Leavenworth discover a century-old satellite in a sector of deep space where it doesn't belong. Even worse, there's a frozen body stuffed inside that satellite. Can they thaw him out and get some answers? And if they can, will they wish they hadn't?

If the long-feared war has truly started, Seattle sits in the path of destruction. Mayor Ray Huang is as prepared as any bureaucrat can be, but he knows even the best plans rarely make it past the first shot. His citizens will survive, at least: in a slick new era of technological and economic warfare, there's no need to kill people, and combat robots go out of their way to avoid bloodshed. But Ray quickly learns that no matter how efficient and safe machines are, it's the people who can't...

Toval has defied his oath to save a conquered princess from a fellow soldier's assault. The two of them have managed to flee, but with the dreaded Black Cloaks on their trail, their chances of getting very far are slim. With the odds this stacked against them, it would be absolute insanity for them to attempt to rescue her father from an Imperial garrison.

Sales wizard Joe Yount is an enviable guy: always the life of the party, lovely wife, quick with a funny story. Unfortunately, he's been unemployed for a while. That's why the opportunity Doctor Zemek gives him is too good to pass up. The paycheck will be nice, but what could be better than helping to cure cancer and save the planet? If only he could put a finger on why his new employer creeps him out so intensely, he could really enjoy the new job.