They came from deep space. They came to destroy us. Fifty years ago bloodthirsty aliens devastated the Earth. Most of humanity perished. We fell into darkness. But now we rise from the ashes. Now we fight back. Marco Emery was born into the war. After his mother is killed, he joins the Human Defense Force, Earth's ragtag army. Emery must survive basic training, become a soldier, and finally face the aliens in battle. Against the alien onslaught, Earth stands alone. But we will fight. We will rise. We will win.

We hide in shadows. Our planet is lost. We are the last humans, and we must go home. Two thousand years ago, aliens destroyed Earth. Our fleets shattered. Billions died. The last humans fled a burning planet, heading to the stars. Today we are still refugees. Hungry. Afraid. Our enemies hunt us everywhere. So we hide. On distant asteroids. In rundown space stations. In deep caves on frozen worlds. And we dream. Of green hills. Blue skies. Golden fields. We dream of Earth. And for the first time, we have hope.

Jon Taylor is an Earthling. He doesn't care much about space. At least until his brother dies on Bahay, a war-torn planet many light-years away. After the funeral, Jon joins the army. He learns to kill. And he flies to Bahay, sworn to avenge his brother. Centuries ago, Filipino colonists arrived on Bahay to build a utopia. But this world has become a nightmare. Jon finds himself in a dizzying dreamscape, a world of dark jungles and neon slums, of ruthless guerrillas and intoxicating bargirls, of blood-soaked battlefields and glittering brothels.

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....

The starship Freedom was once a mighty warship. Today, she's a tourist attraction. The space wars ended long ago. The Freedom is now a flying museum; the tourists love it. The Changing of the Guard, the starfighter aerobatics, the starboard cannon salute...it's the best show in the galaxy. James King commands the starship Freedom. He hates his job. He was a real soldier once, back when the Freedom was a real warship. He never imagined himself running a tourist trap. Right after Christmas, he plans to retire. Then, on Christmas day, the aliens attack.

Go to war or go to jail. For small-time street hustler Cam Alvarez, the choice is simple.... He has no family, no friends, no place in the world...nothing to lose. When his latest con results in the death of a cartel hit man, Cam opts to join the Marines and leave Earth to fight a vicious alien enemy. Drafted into the Marine Drop-Troopers, Cam discovers there’s one thing he’s even better at than running street-con games, and that’s killing the enemy.

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

Two centuries after the Confederation staved off an invasion by the robotic Locusts, Captain Jack Romanoff faces mandatory retirement from an ever-shrinking navy. Actions speak louder than words. The Confederation doesn’t think the Locusts are coming back. But what if the politicians are wrong?

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.

It's the year 2277. For 50 years, Earth has received mysterious data transmissions from random locations in deep space. The streams include advanced technology, allowing humans to achieve faster-than-light travel virtually overnight. As we prepare to take our first tentative steps into interstellar space, we know almost nothing about our alien benefactors, and their motivations remain unexplained.

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.

Caleb is a former Marine Raider and commander of the Vultures, a search and rescue team that's spent the last two years pulling high-value targets out of alien-ravaged cities and shipping them off-world. When his new orders call for him to join 40,000 survivors aboard the last starship out, he thinks his days of fighting are over. The Deliverance represents a fresh start and a chance to leave the war behind for good. Except the war won't be as easy to escape as he thought.

Captain Mitchell "Ares" Williams is a space marine and the hero of the Battle for Liberty whose shot heard 'round the universe saved the planet from a nearly unstoppable war machine. He's handsome, charismatic, and the perfect poster boy to help the military drive enlistment. Pulled from the war and thrown into the spotlight, he's as efficient at charming the media and bedding beautiful celebrities as he was at shooting down enemy starfighters.

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?

Aliens exist...and, as it turns out, most of them aren’t that friendly. Jacob Brown wasn’t even born yet the first time they attacked Earth. He was only 14 the second time it happened. When Earth finally came together and fielded its first spaceborne military, Jacob didn’t hesitate to volunteer. Serving aboard a mighty starship, he’d be able to defend his planet - and his family - when, inevitably, they came again.