Charlie Travers figures his life can’t get much worse. He lives over a pizza restaurant, he’s lost his girlfriend, and has no prospects for a career. Then, he’s abducted by an alien robot and taken across the galaxy. When he wakes up, he finds himself stranded thousands of light-years away, and about to be killed by space pirates.

When a high-value scientist is taken hostage inside the galaxy's most dangerous prison, Halek Cain is the only man for the job. The last remaining survivor of the Reaper program, Hal is an unstoppable force of fuel and madness. A veteran amputee-turned-cyborg, he has a history of violence and a talent for killing that is unmatched by any soldier. With the promise of freedom as his only incentive, he'll stop at nothing to earn back his life from the people who made him, imprisoned him, and were too afraid to let him die.

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?

A frontier world. One sheriff. And all the action one spaceport can't hold. Darklanding is the wild, wild west of known space. Sheriff Thaddeus Fry will never completely leave the battlefields of Centauri Prime. His assignment as the sheriff of Darklanding could be a do-nothing job, or it could get him killed.

Joining the fight for the Galaxy isn't required. It's a choice. The United Galactic Government is mired in a decade-long war for control of a key planet. Weakened by overextension and political intrigue, they could lose everything. When a child of privilege gives up everything to enlist and fight for what is right, he learns what it means to become part of a team. He encounters refugees, aliens he never expected to empathize with, and the loss of comrades. In the end he must develop the courage to stand up, not only to aliens and governments, but his own family.

When leading archeologist Dr. Hank Murphy discovers an alien artifact on the Moon, corporate interests are quick to get involved. Murphy just wants to understand what this thing is and how it works. After months of research, he finally manages to locate the power source. The gate is soon activated...and Murphy is pulled through. Moments later, he finds himself in a war-torn corner of the galaxy where strangers like him are called Orphans...and they are considered extremely dangerous. Somehow altered by the experience, the archeologist now has enhanced strength, speed, and agility.

Benjamin Wrath is among the first officers to get sent to the Andromeda Galaxy. As part of the Sentient Crime Division, millions of light years from Earth, Wrath's precinct is in charge of maintaining order in a chaotic new frontier, tasked with protecting the rights of all sentient beings.

When a series of devastating terror attacks brought down the United States, Conor and Barb assumed they were safe in their compound. They had everything they needed. They were armed and highly trained. But then, Barb was kidnapped. The kidnappers didn’t know why Conor was known as The Mad Mick. They didn’t know the fear and respect his name invoked in the shadowy underworld of covert operations. They didn’t know that when it came to protecting his family, he was without conscience, without compassion, and without equal. But they would soon find out.

Michael Freeman is a disabled veteran who had just been fired from his mind-numbing cubicle job, which allowed his opportunistic girlfriend to dump him. Now, he only wants to spend some time at his grandfather's mountain cabin so he can unwind, away from the drudgery of daily life and with a cold beer in his hands. Standing in his way is an ancient spaceship with an emotional AI, nanites that have invaded his body, an international crime syndicate, a suicidal FBI agent on a vigilante mission, terrorists . . . and that's just the beginning.

With no power, no heat, and a total grid collapse, tough times keep getting tougher. But when America is struck with an EMP, this small group of survivors will be forced out of the frying pan and into the fire. Only there can they fight for their homes, their families, their community, and their right to be free from the restraints of an oppressive world force.

Five years ago, aliens destroyed a carrier and its airwing at Jupiter without warning. Since then, the Earth’s nations have learned to work together, and they want to know more about the aliens who appeared, attacked, and vanished without a trace. The Americans have provided a new carrier. Chinese technology has made going after the invaders possible. And the Russians have developed a new control system that will give the craft never-before-seen capabilities. Mankind’s next war is upon us, and Uplink Squadron is the tip of the spear.

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

Jon Ryan is irreverent, cocky, funny, and walks with a swagger. The cocky fighter pilot turned astronaut is also Earth's only chance for survival. The planet Jupiter, thrown off orbit, will destroy Earth in less than a century. Jon volunteers for the most ambitious, desperate mission ever conceived: His consciousness must be transferred into an experimental android host, where he'll live an immortal - and lonely - life. Jon's only companion on his 50-year voyage is his ship's irritable AI.

The Earth’s navy is left drifting among the stars as Nyctus ships swarm, their purpose unknown as they continue their advance, burning one system after another. Humanity's extinction seems inevitable. But on one of the forgotten worlds, a boy is left behind, and he holds a talent unlike anything the galaxy has ever known. Thorn Stellers is a mage, trained to lead and fight. With a renegade division of warriors at his side, and with weapons far different from those of old Earth, Thorn has a chance at standing up to humanity's enemies.

Knocking at death’s door. Bargaining for a second chance. Seems like a heck of a way to find out about an alien invasion.... Vietnam vet Albert Jenkins is battling a bulging waistline and a passion for drink. So when a towering pile of scrap rocket parts falls and crushes the stubborn curmudgeon, he thinks it’s finally the end. But just as he’s about to take one final breath, a snarky alien parasite offers him a deal: His life in return for sharing his body.

Two hundred years ago, a fleet of colony ships left Earth and started a settlement on Proxima Centauri. Centurion Space Force pilot Nathan Stacker didn't expect to return home to find his wife dead. He didn't expect the murderer to look just like him, and he definitely didn't expect to be the one to take the blame. But his wife had control of a powerful secret. A secret that stretches across the light years between two worlds and could lead to the end of both. Now that secret is in Nathan's hands, and he's about to make the most desperate evasive maneuver of his life.

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....

They call themselves SYLO and they are a secret branch of the U.S. Navy. SYLO's commander, Captain Granger, informs Pemberwick residents that the island has been hit by a lethal virus and must be quarantined. Tucker believes there’s more to SYLO’s story. He was on the sidelines when the high school running back dropped dead with no warning. He saw the bizarre midnight explosion over the ocean, and the mysterious singing aircraft that travel like shadows through the night sky. He tasted the Ruby - and experienced the powers it gave him - for himself.

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 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.

They hunt us. They bomb our worlds for target practice. A star cluster in the constellation of Orion rotates once every 1,000 years. Those who rule there have an ancient tradition: When each cycle ends, they train their fleets by spilling the blood of lesser beings. The enemy fleets are coming again. In response, the Rebel Worlds gather their starships to face the terrifying threat, and this time humanity is asked to stand with them. The last time they considered Earth, Vikings in longboats were raiding English coastlines. Today, we're less primitive. Today, we're a target.

On June 30, 1908, an object fell from the sky, releasing more energy than a thousand Hiroshima bombs. A Siberian forest was flattened, but the strike left no significant crater. The anomaly came to be known as the Tunguska Event, and scientists have never agreed whether it was the largest meteor strike in recorded history - or something else. Alien artifacts have been uncovered since the 1908 event, and a new star drive is discovered.

They first appear as a series of dots on astronomical plates, heading from Saturn directly toward Earth. Since the ringed planet carries no life, scientists deduce the mysterious ship to be a visitor from another star. The world's frantic efforts to signal the aliens go unanswered. The first contact is hostile: the invaders blast a Soviet space station, seize the survivors, and then destroy every dam and installation on Earth with a hail of asteriods.

Cities all around the world reported strange alien vessels descending. Some saw them as the heralds of a new age; others fired everything they had at them. All were taken as the beams lashed down and drew them into the sky. Dean was left behind, seemingly the last man on Earth. A trail of clues left by his dead wife guides Dean on a perilous journey across America and beyond to learn the truth behind the mysterious ships and save humanity from its doom.

The Hundred Worlds have withstood invasion by the relentless Hok for decades. The human worlds are strong, but the Hok have the resources of a thousand planets behind them, and their fleets attack in endless waves. The long war has transformed the Hundred Worlds into heavily fortified star systems. Their economies are geared for military output, and they raise specialized soldiers to save our species. Assault Captain Derek Straker is one such man among many.

Kris Longknife is a daughter of privilege, born to money and power. Her father is the prime minister of her home planet, her mother the consummate politician's wife. She's been raised only to be beautiful and marry well. But the heritage of the military Longknifes courses through Kris' blood - and, against her parents' objections, she enlists in the Marines.

When out-of-shape IT technician Roen wakes up and starts hearing voices in his head, he naturally assumes he’s losing it. He isn’t. As of last night, he has a passenger in his brain - an ancient alien life-form called Tao, whose race crash-landed on Earth before the first fish crawled out of the oceans. Over the millennia his people have trained human heroes to be great leaders, to advance our species at a rate far beyond what it would have achieved on its own. Split into two opposing factions - the peace-loving, but under-represented Prophus, and the savage, powerful Genjix - the aliens have been in a state of civil war for centuries.

When humanity reaches for the stars, our probes are destroyed. They crash into an incredibly advanced piece of technology: a massive force-field. Unknown beings have placed a barrier around our star and planets, enclosing us within. We’re locked inside a Great Sphere. Was this invisible obstacle built to imprison us - or to protect us? No one knows the truth, but it soon becomes clear the barrier has leaks. Aliens infiltrate and try to sabotage our efforts to escape our cage.

Jason Burke was a man hiding from himself in a small cabin high in the American Rocky Mountains when his simple, quiet life was shattered one night by what he first assumed was an aviation mishap. But when he investigates the crash, what he finds will yank him out of his self-imposed exile and thrust him into a world he could have never imagined.

The world had become used to the metahumans - people sometimes perfectly ordinary, but sometimes quite extraordinary in appearance - who mostly worked with their governments as high-powered peace officers, fighting crime, and sometimes fighting rogue metahumans who had become super-criminals. Then that comfortable world ended in just one terrifying day.