For a thousand years, humanity’s empire ruled the stars. Now it rots from within. A dynasty despised as illegitimate has bled the realm dry, and its latest sovereign—a mad empress—drives the Fleet into civil war. Admirals rebel. Generals turn traitor. Sibling fights sibling as the empire tears itself apart.With the Navy shattered, the frontier lies exposed. From the galactic badlands, barbarian hordes surge forward—hard men and harder worlds, bred on violence and hunger. They plund...

Siobhan Dunmoore was losing the war one ship at a time. The Shrehari Empire had burned more hulls out from under her than any other officer in the Fleet. Some said she was too aggressive. Others said too reckless. The enemy called her something else—something they spat with fear. None of it mattered. Not all her enemies wore Imperial uniforms. And the only reputation she had left was for bad luck.She was dragging another wreck home, crew half‑dead, systems failing. This time she’d ...

What is the value of one life in an interstellar war that has already claimed millions? And if that single life doesn’t matter, are any others worth saving?A distress signal draws Siobhan Dunmoore’s Q-ship Iolanthe, a battlecruiser disguised as a bulk freighter, away from her devastatingly successful hunt through Shrehari occupied space and plunges Dunmoore into a dark, merciless universe of competing government organizations, undercover warfare, and organ...

Captain Siobhan Dunmoore no longer enjoys the freedom to fight the Shrehari Empire on her own terms aboard the Q-ship Iolanthe. Special Operations Command has assigned her to Task Force Luckner, whose mission is replicating Iolanthe’s success on a larger scale. Unfortunately, neither her new superior, Rear Admiral Kell Petras, nor any other captain in the task force understands successful commerce raiding requires a different mindset. Instead of sheepdogs...

Life hasn’t been easy for Siobhan Dunmoore and many of her fellow veterans since the Shrehari War ended.The Fleet’s quick return to a mundane peacetime footing left them unmoored and incapable of fully readapting after years engulfed in an existential struggle. Meanwhile, the memories of all those hard-won lessons, paid for with humanity’s dearest blood, are fading as careerists, bureaucrats, and politicians in uniform replace the leaders who brought about the war’...

Captain Siobhan Dunmoore wanted to believe the long war against the invading Shrehari Empire had finally banished the ghosts of her past. But when her ship Iolanthe, a heavily armed man-of-war masked as a bulk freighter, finds itself in need of replenishment after a long patrol spent stalking human and alien foes, she is confronted with events eerily reminiscent of a past she thought buried. When evidence of treason and marauders bold enough to strike a Navy outpost leave ...

All good things must end, and a reluctant Siobhan Dunmoore trades command of her battle group for a staff job ashore.Yet her appointment to the headquarters of the 3rd Fleet, responsible for humanity's most restive frontier, is no accident. Things aren't quite right in what was once the most ferocious and effective formation in the Navy, and its control over the Rim Sector's outer edges is failing.When Dunmoore investigates, she finds herself adrift on stor...

The most powerful empire in human history is rushing headlong toward destruction, ending our species’ supremacy in the known galaxy.Two men with widely divergent visions are on a mission to save civilization in at least one sector, far from the imperial capital where a demented ruler holds sway. The first, Jonas Morane, wants to create an impregnable vault containing humanity’s accumulated knowledge so those who survive the coming darkness can rebuild in decades in...

They strike without warning and vanish without a trace.The Marines of Ghost Squadron are humanity’s foremost black ops specialists who will do whatever is necessary to protect humanity anywhere in the known galaxy. With the Commonwealth increasingly unstable thanks to venal politicians, greedy financiers, and power-hungry revolutionaries, they don’t lack for missions.When an undercover Constabulary officer vanishes after uncovering...

Duty, honour, loyalty. What meaning did those words still hold in the midst of a stalemated interstellar war where the difference between the enemy and one's own leadership was sometimes paper thin? Unfairly relegated to punishment duty far from the battle lines and still pursued by her past, Siobhan Dunmoore was ordered to sail her ship deep into pirate-infested space on a quest to restore the Navy's reputation after she failed to stop an attack that destroyed a civilian...

One last mission. One mysterious passenger. One baffling destination. After centuries of travel, an ancient log buoy finally reaches human-controlled space. In the midst of a stalemated interstellar war, the Admiralty has little interest in wasting resources on what would likely be a fruitless search for the truth, but someone was able to convince them they could afford to send an old, obsolete frigate soon destined for the scrapyard, on this quest. Pulled from her patrol route, Siobhan Du...

Zack Decker wanted one thing: to fight as a Marine Pathfinder. He got it. Then he lost it. Temper. Hatred of brass. Career over. Wife gone. Friends gone. Nothing left but a bottle and a string of planets he barely remembered.Then an old Marine buddy pulled him out of the gutter. Offered him a job. Decker took it. He was already running—cop dead, militia hunting him. No place to hide.The job was dirty. Security on a starship with owners who stank of trouble and a crew just a...