The Galactic Empire disappeared a lifetime ago. Jake Stewart doesn't care, he needs to earn a living. He fled his station in the outer Belt, enrolled in the merchant academy, and snagged a scholarship. The future looks bright. But a crooked boss, some paperwork shenanigans, and a freeloading best friend put him in a bind. When he's accused of a murder he didn't commit he goes on the run from the Planetary Militia. There's only his wits and a suspiciously helpful pretty girl between him and jail. Can he trust her to prove his innocence? Or does she have another agenda?

Dirriken Friedel used his aristocratic connections to rescue his troops. He didn't plan on starting a war or killing them himself. Now he spends his days in jail, waiting for an assassin sent by his dead officers families to end his misery. When he's broken out by off-duty marines he has a chance to start over, if he's worthy. During his ramshackle escape he collects a broken-down trading ship, a bitter former army officer, a genetically altered religious fanatic, a runaway ingenue, a sham engineer, and a murderous femme fatale.

When Manchester Yards donates a new training vessel to the Merchant Officer Academy at Port Newmar, Alys Giggone recalls the Chernyakova. She wants Ishmael Wang and his crew to take a crew of cadets into the Deep Dark. They have to sort out the crews of two ships, figure out what lessons they need to teach, and who will get those lessons. Once they agree, the trouble starts.

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.

What would you do to change your life? How far would you go? How hard would you fight? Rather than work his bones into dust toiling away on a barren world, Ryck Lysander chooses to enlist in the Federation Marine Corps. But as he quickly finds out, this path isn't just a job...it's a calling...and not everyone is suited to wear the uniform.

Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place. Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits.

He knows it, and so does everyone else in the star nation of Prometheus. A promising naval career down the drain just because he accidentally killed 504 civilians. So, it's time for him to give up and accept a dead-end command on Persephone, the worst starship in the fleet. Until he meets the beautiful and cunning Jessica Lin, his new executive officer, who harbors a terrible secret of her own. Now, with an enemy warship four times their size bearing down on them, Brad's in a race to save Jessica and his stupid ship.

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.

Bob thought he was doing fine on his own. Then the love of his life fell out of the sky. Can he get her back in the air with auto parts and a cutting torch? If he does, will she ever come back? Nikki took a job before she saw the equipment. Can she keep her passengers alive on a strange planet? Are the natives friendly?

When the Solus Hegemony’s profit margins are threatened, expendable soldiers are called in to foot the bill—one bloody conquest at a time. Noah Rivers is one such soldier. Raised from birth with a single objective—obtain eternal glory through death in service to the galaxy’s most notorious corporate empire.

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

Nora Devi is a xeno-archaeologist with a complicated past. She has buried more secrets than she’s dug up. Widowed in the recently ended twelve year war between Capitoline and Palantine, she now makes a living as an independent tagger in border space. Captain Liam Kimani could be credited with ending the latest royal war. Instead, he’s blamed for it. Dirty commoners aren’t meant to lay their hands on royalty. He has no regrets.

In a universe run by corporations, where profit matters more than life, how can an orphan with no skills, no money, and no prospects survive? When Ishmael Wang's mother dies in a senseless accident, he's given a choice: leave the planet on his own, or the company will remove him. To avoid deportation Ishmael finds work as a mess deck attendant on an interstellar freighter.

Jack Reilly's luck ran out just before the war did. Resigning his commission in the Alliance shortly after the end of the war with the Serkins, he went out into the galaxy looking for a job. Signing onto the Glacier Runner 17, an old and rundown cargo ship, Reilly finds himself working for a clueless captain, mixed up in an intergalactic conspiracy, on the run from assassins, and involved with two women in relationships that he could only call "complicated". And that's just book one. Follow Lt. Jack Reilly and his partner, Major Mitchel, through their adventures.

When Ben Murdock receives a text message offering a fully operational starship for sale, he’s certain it has to be a joke. Already trapped in the worst day of his life and desperate for a way out, he decides to play along. Except there is no joke. The starship is real. And Ben’s life is going to change in ways he never dreamed possible. All he has to do is sign the contract. Joined by his streetwise best friend and a bizarre tenant with an unseverable lease, he’ll soon discover that the universe is more volatile, treacherous, and awesome than he ever imagined.