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

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.

Dangerous forces are at work across galactic space that the Omnians are attempting to stabilize, but their resources are severely strained. The SADEs, self-aware digital entities, express to Alex Racine and Renée de Guirnon their desire to know the method of their creation. Alex and Renée, the Omnian co-leaders, want to obtain the knowledge for the SADEs, who are humans’ closest allies. Alex, Renée, and Julien, a friend and a SADE, board the giant city-ship, Freedom, which sails for Méridien, the home world of the far-reaching human colonies of the Confederation.

The sisters’ leader, Miriamal, and three mining chairpersons investigate an unexplored wormhole for possible economic expansion. Aboard the Dominance, they exit the wormhole and are stunned to find the nearby system inhabited. More troubling, technologically advanced warships hold station above the system’s exoplanet. SADEs witness the hasty return of the Dominance and the cessation of messages between Miriamal and Lisa Dyehouse. The Truth Matters partners race against time to save Samuel, and they’re not above leveraging an unreliable criminal hacker.

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.

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.

The Imperium executors are incensed. They thought to expel the empire’s invaders in a massive onslaught of powerful battleship fleets, the peacekeepers, but the attack failed miserably. Blame is tossed among the assembly.

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.

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.

A sailor recalls the monstrous terror that lay at the bottom of the deep in this, Lovecraft’s earliest tale of unspeakable horror from outside our universe.

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.

Escalation is the watchword for the dangerous contest between the Imperium and the conclave. Executors seek the means to push the conclave out of the empire, and desperate measures are taken to design and construct new ships, which are armed with a terrible weapon.

The great spheres and probes of Artifice, humankind's enemy, haunt every inhabited world near and far. The Omnians' long and arduous search for Artifice has ended. They've located Artifice's lair in the Talus system.

This is the definitive biography of rap supergroup and cultural icons, Wu-Tang Clan (WTC). Heralded as one of the most influential groups in modern music — hip hop or otherwise — WTC created a rap dynasty on the strength of seven gold and platinum albums that launched the careers of such famous rappers as RZA, GZA, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Method Man, and more. During the ‘90s, they ushered in a hip-hop renaissance, rescuing rap from the corporate suites and bringing it back to the gritty streets where it started.

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.

In business, performance is key. In performance, how you organize can be the key to growth. In the past five years, the business world has seen the birth of a new breed of company - the Exponential Organization - that has revolutionized how a company can accelerate its growth by using technology.

A student’s investigation into a secret cult leads to madness.

Alien visitors devastate a remote farm in Lovecraft’s first and best venture into science fiction.

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.

In the backwoods of the Miskatonic River valley, an unspeakable creature seeks to come through the veil into our 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.