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.

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.

Sol's warships paid the ultimate price for threatening the Haraken and New Terran worlds. Now, Haraken president Alex Racine and his Méridien partner, Renée de Guirnon, are engaged in a desperate gamble to stop a war between their worlds and United Earth's (UE) massive forces before it starts. What's Alex's grand plan? He hasn't a clue, but his people believe in him and hope he will find a way to protect them.

Nine years of tranquility came to an abrupt end when a Méridien starship entered the Hellébore system, sounding a dire warning for Alex Racine, the Haraken president. Unwanted visitors had arrived again. But this time, they're not alien; they're human. Claiming to have followed the course of a colony ship launched a millennium ago when Earth wrestled with resource wars and climate change, the mission commander, Antonio García, requests a meeting with the planet's leaders.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Omnian expeditionary fleet sails for the faraway place they call "the wall". The worlds of humankind have consolidated their resources to create a powerful armada to confront the alien federation. During the Omnians' previous encounter with an alien fleet at the wall, the Nua'll comm sphere spoke to them in multiple languages. When the messages were deciphered by SADEs, the humans' digital friends, the Omnians realized two things. One, they would face a vast empire composed of hundreds of races, and, two, the Nua'll were not the leaders of the federacy. They had spoken of masters.

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.

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.

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.

The conclave’s forces had reached a tipping point. Due to the vast expanse occupied by the empire’s thirty-five territories, Admiral Cordelia and Commander Tocknicka previously had to bide their time. They employed discreet tactical actions to harass the Krackus overseers and their mercenaries, the Radags. Now, Tridents in the hundreds and multiple Quadrants, with their experienced crews, were in place to deliver strategic actions against the Imperium Empire.

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.

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.

Pyre's humans suffer multiple cultural shocks. They discovered the Messinants dome, an ancient construction that houses a quantum-coupled gate. More shocking, they find that sentient alien races utilize a network of these domes to journey between their far distant worlds in pursuit of alliance matters. If humans wish to join this elite collection of sentients, they must contribute significantly in trade, tech, or something of equal value.

The Veklocks require the Pyreans to explore the extent of the Colony's usurpation of domes. The Colony is composed of two insectoid species, the grays and the reds. They're aggressive three- and five-meter long insectoids with venomous pincers that live for the expansion of their race. The Pyreans already lost one member of their team on their first exploration and are hesitant to meet the Colony again, unless they're better prepared.

Alex Racine, who led an elite group of humans and SADEs (self-ware digital entities), left the newly discovered planet of Celus-5 under difficult circumstances. Few of the Harakens with Alex thought there was little he could do to bring peace to the embroiled planet. From their viewpoint, the demands of the Celus-5 Swei Swee, the six-legged aliens of the ocean, and the Dischnya, the warring, doglike, intelligent creatures who inhabited the dry plains, were too convoluted to solve.