Showing results by author "S. H. Jucha" in All Categories

Pyre is a volatile planet. Its surface belches heat and noxious gases, forcing downsiders to inhabit domes. But Pyre’s instability isn’t limited to its geology. The colonists, who were marooned in the system hundreds of years ago, have endured a tumultuous history.

The conclave evicts the mercenary forces surrounding Cercia. It gives Mila Pappas the opportunity to lead the first wave on an offensive against these races in their territories. However, Mila’s strategy quickly evolves from one of offense to persuasion. Sadie and the suits are at the forefront of the new campaign. When the carriers practice their unbalanced trade exchanges with the local populations, Sadie shifts the team aboard the ships. Slowly, information is collected from the carriers’ control centers. A third language, Metter, is added to those of the Zafts and the Ondas.

The surviving Méridiens have returned to Confederation space, aided by their recently discovered cousins, the New Terrans. They expect a celebration after their 71-year absence. Instead, they're shocked to find the silver ships have destroyed half the Confederation. The Méridiens are fleeing in advance of the horde of alien ships. But Alex Racine and his crew didn't come this far to run away from humanity's enemy.

The Méridiens are fleeing to their far colonies - and they have reason to run. Over the course of decades, they have lost hundreds of ships, billions of people, and seven Confederation colonies to an alien enemy: an advancing swarm of silver ships transported in the bowels of a gigantic, spherical vessel. Alex Racine, who once enjoyed the solitary life of an explorer-tug captain, is now an admiral and responsible for the lives of a quarter million Librans.

Cremsylon and his companions visited the center of the Imperium Empire. That provided an opportunity for Kreus, the first Krackus SADE, to contact the Imperium governor, an AI who controls the planet’s communications. It’s also the repository for the empire’s critical data. The visit to Imperium happens, not once, but twice. Each time, Kreus spends time perusing the governor’s records, invasions that the AI is incapable of stopping. These intrusions initiate an odd sequence of events.

An explorer tug captain, Alex Racine detects a damaged alien craft drifting into the system. Recognizing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make first contact, Alex pulls off a daring maneuver to latch on to the derelict. Alex discovers the ship was attacked by an unknown craft, the first of its kind ever encountered. The mysterious silver ship's attack was both instant and deadly.

Talus, the system comprised of Toralians and the Sisterhood, is under siege. Massive battleships, each ferrying an envoy from a federacy race, surround the Talusian home world Toral. Two wedges, each comprised of nine federacy battleships, wait outside the system. The sisters, whom the SADEs created during the fight to defeat Artifice, possess advanced tech.

Tensions escalate across the Imperium Empire. Dwerves hunt for new Krackus worlds to raid. The Imperium executors hope to put an end to the huge armed ship’s rampage, and they delegate the duty to those imperators with the most experience against the empire’s invaders.

Omnians, Earthers, and alliance members are fighting the Colony, the horde of sentient insectoids that threaten alliance space. The Colony has had centuries to expand through the network of domes built by the Messinants, an ancient race. The domes’ Q-gates allow the insectoids to invade planets through their inventive use of rings, which extends the power of the domes. It’s Omnian superior technology that gives a temporary advantage to the peaceful alliance members who lead the fight to retake their planets.

Trouble infiltrated the Harakens' capital city of Espero, in the form of New Terra criminal gangs who grew wealthy and powerful on the moons of Ganymede, hiding behind the cover of an ill-conceived mining charter. The gangs brought stims and addictive hallucinogenic drugs to Espero, distributing them to the young on the planet.

Opportunity is presented to Admiral Cordelia. Imperium’s Presiding Executor Gaketork sends emissaries to establish communications with her, and she responds by installing a comm system aboard the executor’s transport. The Imperium governor, who has become sentient, uses the new comm system to send her critical data. Cordelia shares the governor’s information with newly assembled Trident squadron commanders. She directs the commanders to scour another executor’s territory and free suborned worlds of mercenary Radags and Krackus overseers.

Captain Jessie Cinders faces a hazardous choice. The murderer of the governor’s nephew stands before him. But, the frightened teenager, Aurelia Garmenti, doesn’t resemble the commandant’s description of the vicious, hardened killer his security forces seek. To complicate matters, Jessie’s mind has felt Aurelia’s mental powers. The girl is an empath, who escaped the domes below and rode the El car to reach the JOS, Pyre’s orbital station. This shouldn’t be possible. The century-old agreement between topsiders and downsiders forbids the domes to knowingly admit empaths.

The time is opportune for Alex Racine. Omnian efforts and sacrifices culminate in a singular opportunity. With good fortune, Alex will bring together the diverse races the Omnians have encountered. Alex selects the human colonies of New Terra, Haraken, Omnia, and Méridien to solicit their attendance. Unknowingly, he sails toward a deadly encounter.

The descendants of a fourth Earth colony ship, Destiny, successfully establish a foothold in unoccupied space. Naiad, the home world, is a frozen ball, but the colonists persevere and expand through wormholes to remote systems. Navigating the time-space anomalies requires Axis-ships. The expensive vessels are constructed by corporations, and remote worlds are claimed by the companies for their valuable ores and gases.

Imperium executors face daunting pressure to control their territories. The assembly’s election of a presiding executor upsets the body’s balance of power. A moderate, Gaketork, wins the election, unseating Rebtar. As required by Imperium law, Rebtar is forced to trade territories with Gaketork. Rebtar inherits a territory where a conclave fleet resides. Despite the Imperium’s peacekeepers being ejected by conclave forces from there, the executor orders both patrol fleets to return. This sets up a dangerous collision between the Krackus fleets and the conclave ships.

Admiral Cordelia prosecutes multiple Krackus territories simultaneously with Trident squadrons. However, the success of the Liberation and its Trident escorts to clear territories comes to an end with the loss of multiple warships in a furious engagement against a capable Krackus fleet imperator. Forced to return to Helgart, Captain Mila Pappas offers a harsh solution to enable the Liberation to return residents to their home worlds. She suggests they no longer engage in ship-to-ship battles against Krackus fleets. Instead, Juno and her companions should fight with the deadly Elvian drones. The idea is readily accepted.

Artifice, the great enemy, has been defeated. The sister SADEs, Omnian sentient digital entities, are free from their boxes. Most humans are unaware that the sisters have duplicated themselves many more times than suspected. They now constitute a sizable, powerful group, calling themselves the Sisterhood. The elimination of Artifice’s rule should be a time of relief and recovery for Alex Racine’s Omnian fleet and for the Toralians, whose home world was Artifice’s lair. Instead, it’s a chaotic period.

The conclave continually pressures the Imperium Empire by ousting peacekeepers and Radag mercenaries from imperial territories. This interdicts resources bound for Krackus worlds from the suborned races and exacerbates Imperium distribution protocols. On Jegstrat, a populous Krackus world, declining grain shipments lead to favoring distribution to large companies. Saboteurs plan to slow production at Imperial Grains, the largest processing plant. The goal is to rebalance grain distribution, but the attack goes terribly awry, causing death and great damage.

The Queller race has lived for millennia in isolation. However, a secret kept by the Queller senior elder and a few associates drives the elder to make contact with another race. Little do the Quellers know that they send a QASAP ship, an autonomous search ship, to engage the conclave. Not detecting an aggressive society, Julien chooses to accept the autonomous ship’s invitation, and a small fleet commanded by Commodore Tocknicka follows the QASAP’s star map to the Queller home world.

Two crises challenge the Omnians. Alex Racine’s fleet draws a first-contact conflict, which faces the Ollassa, a symbiotic flora race. The Omnian fleet sails from alliance space in an effort to interdict an alien ship that arrives at the Worlds of Lights, the Ollassa system. Soon after arriving, the alien ship deploys machines to scour asteroids for resources in the system’s far belt.