The dream of a stable, democratic human Commonwealth has been dying for years. Politicians, financiers, and spies vie for supremacy, power, and wealth in pursuit of a nightmarish vision that can have only one outcome, the creation of a repressive interstellar empire. All that stands between them and their goal is a small band of determined Fleet operatives working in the shadows. Drawn into the struggle against his will, former Marine Pathfinder Zack Decker soon realizes he must choose sides and join those fighting off the growing darkness, but at great personal cost. However, try as they might, the double-crossing humans, deadly aliens, cruel pirates, and merciless slavers he must battle cannot keep Decker from extracting his revenge, especially after his beloved Corps recalls him to active duty as a Marine. He takes no prisoners and pulls no punches because his growing list of enemies has forced him to accept that this is also Decker's War. And it is a fight to the death. Unfortunately for his foes, they always seem to forget that he is still one of the Few... This omnibus edition includes the first three Decker's War novels which have been published separately. They are Death Comes But Once (Decker's War Book 1) Cold Comfort (Decker's War Book 2) Fatal Blade (Decker's War Book 3)
Now, for the first time, the three books that started a legend are together in a single edition. Book 1: No Honor in Death Siobhan Dunmoore isn't having a good war. She's had more ships shot out from under her by the invading Shrehari Empire than any other officer in the Fleet. Some call her overly aggressive. Others simply call her reckless. What the enemy calls her is something else altogether. That she gave the Shrehari a good drubbing along the way doesn't matter in the least, because not all her enemies wear an Imperial uniform. A reputation for bad luck is pretty much all she has left. After another near defeat, she wants nothing more than a long rest, because this time, she escaped by the thinnest of bluffs. Unfortunately, the Admiralty has other ideas. The frigate Stingray is known as the unluckiest ship in the Fleet, one whose Captain was removed in disgrace for cowardice. Some in the Admiralty want to retire the old warhorse. After all, she is the last of her type left in service and perhaps it's time to break up the jinx permanently, along with the crew. But during an interstellar war, every ship that could fight is needed. In short order, Dunmoore goes from staring down the Empire's finest on the bridge of a wrecked battleship to taking on a demoralized, semi-mutinous crew, scheming admirals, and a deadly mystery. Stingray's bad luck isn't just superstition gone rampant. Between a crew that won't talk, political enemies who want her gone, and her personal demons, she has her hands full. Taking the frigate into battle under those conditions would seem foolish to anyone else, but Dunmoore never shrank from a good fight. Book 2: The Path of Duty Duty, honour, loyalty. What meaning do those words still hold during an interstellar war where the difference between the enemy and one's own leadership is sometimes paper thin? Unfairly relegated to punishment duty far from the battle lines and still pursued by her past, Siobhan Dunmoore must sail her ship deep into pirate-infested space on a quest to restore the Navy's reputation after failing to stop an attack that destroyed a civilian freighter. There, she hopes to find clues that might absolve Stingray’s crew from blame but instead, she's sucked into a vortex of intrigue and treachery that threatens not only all their lives, but the future of the embattled Commonwealth. Caught in a web of competing schemes for supremacy while fending off marauders, mercenaries, and spies, Dunmoore must find a way of getting her people home safe and beyond the reach of a powerful cabal at the heart of the Admiralty. Book 3: Like Stars in Heaven One last mission. One mysterious passenger. One baffling destination. After centuries of travel, an ancient log buoy finally reaches human-controlled space. Amid a stalemated interstellar war, the Admiralty has little interest in wasting resources on what would likely be a fruitless search for the truth, but someone convinced them to send an old, obsolete frigate soon destined for the scrapyard, on this quest. Pulled from her patrol route, Siobhan Dunmoore is ordered to take an envoy aboard Stingray and sail into a poorly charted and virtually unexplored region of the galaxy hidden behind interstellar dust clouds. Along the way, she'll encounter an old enemy, now also relegated to the fringes of the war, turning a voyage of discovery into a race against time and against each other. All three books in this Omnibus Edition were previously published as separate titles.
Life hasn’t been easy for Siobhan Dunmoore and many of her fellow veterans since the Shrehari War ended. The Fleet’s quick return to a mundane peacetime footing left them unmoored and incapable of fully readapting after years engulfed in an existential struggle. Meanwhile, the memories of all those hard-won lessons, paid for with humanity’s dearest blood, are fading as careerists, bureaucrats, and politicians in uniform replace the leaders who brought about the war’s end. Yet an increasing number of senior officers understand true peace is illusory. Without an external threat to unify them as a species, humans have resumed their favorite activity — fighting each other in dark and dirty wars for power, profit, or glory. And this despite the risk of eroding the Commonwealth’s delicate social and political balance and triggering violent unrest. Ironically, those best suited for stopping nasty, albeit minor conflicts before they escalate, are the very veterans on which the Fleet turned its back. Will Siobhan Dunmoore and her comrades find a new role in halting what could become fatal to human unity, or will they fade away, unwanted, while the Commonwealth begins a long slide into civil discord?
Chaos, created by factions determined to end the centuries-old accord between human settled worlds and Earth, is spreading at an alarming rate. Centralists, aided and abetted by their corporate paymasters, are working hard to destabilize sovereign star systems and strip them of independence. Only the Fleet’s hard-pressed Special Forces can stop those who would foment a series of violent revolutions and trigger a bloody civil conflict capable of destroying humanity’s interstellar civilization. And that means the best of those Special Forces units, Ghost Squadron, doesn’t lack for missions. Disrupting riots aimed at toppling star system governments, seeking out and destroying the Centralist-owned security and intelligence agency’s assets, eradicating cartels used as Centralist cat’s-paws — no operation is too complex. However, each mission takes them deeper into the heart of darkness, and before the Fleet can declare victory, Ghost Squadron may come to resemble the enemies it fights. Yet not using all the means at its disposal could result in the deaths of billions. But will the Special Forces’ legendary prowess and valor suffice, both to save humanity and Ghost Squadron’s soul? Or will the Commonwealth experience the horrors of an existential war before the Fleet can arrest the spiral into madness?
When Caelin Morrow took over Anti-Corruption Unit 12, she figured hunting down dishonest senior officers would be her biggest challenge. But she wasn’t counting on Rear Admiral Hera Talyn making the job interesting by having her investigate treasonous Fleet personnel as well. And traitors are much more dangerous than crooks. With her usual independent attitude, Morrow is creating waves at the highest levels and quickly finds herself at the wrong end of a gun. But she’s becoming known as a deadly force herself, even in the heart of Fleet Headquarters, and will do what she must to put away those who betray everything she holds dear.
Captain Siobhan Dunmoore wanted to believe the long war against the invading Shrehari Empire had finally banished the ghosts of her past. But when her ship Iolanthe, a heavily armed man-of-war masked as a bulk freighter, finds itself in need of replenishment after a long patrol spent stalking human and alien foes, she is confronted with events eerily reminiscent of a past she thought buried. When evidence of treason and marauders bold enough to strike a Navy outpost leave her no choice, Dunmoore knows she must finish the cleanup job Fleet Headquarters ordered her to abandon years ago. Fortunately, Iolanthe and her crew are the perfect instruments with which to dispense much-needed retribution, despite General Orders and the Fleet‘s bureaucracy doing their best to tie a captain’s hands. With her ship taking on the guise of a privateer, she sets out on a merciless hunt to eliminate a band of soulless soldiers of fortune and teach the ghosts of her past a lesson they will never forget. Keyword Tags: Siobhan Dunmoore, sci-fi, science fiction, military science fiction, war, strong female character, space opera, science fiction action adventure, alien invasion, starfleet, space fleet, sci-fi adventure, military sci-fi, Eric Thomson, science fiction series, interstellar war, galactic war, space pirates, mercenaries, colonies, political, intrigue
Someone was setting fire to the Commonwealth Rim, nurturing a storm to drag humanity through the horrors of colonial warfare and thereby hasten the rise of Empire. Their plan had just one fatal flaw: it didn’t count on an ex-Marine pathfinder with a grudge, a dagger and a deadly partner. Zack Decker had seen enough of war to know this one had to be stopped before it turned into an all-out bloodbath, even if that meant ignoring orders and risking his mission as well as his life. After all, he was still one of the Few… Keyword Tags: Zack Decker, Decker’s War, sci-fi, science fiction, military science fiction, war, space marine, space infantry, pathfinder, space opera, science fiction action adventure, alien invasion, space fleet, sci-fi adventure, military sci-fi, Eric Thomson, science fiction series, interstellar war, galactic war, space pirates, mercenary, espionage, thriller, naval intelligence, undercover operations, black ops
Zack Decker wanted only one thing in life: to fight as a Marine Pathfinder. But his temper and his loathing for careerist officers cost him dearly. Forced into early retirement, with a wife who left him long ago, no job, no friends and no future, the former sergeant crawled into a bottle and stayed there, moving from planet to planet, looking for some reason to keep on living. Until, that is, he wandered into a bar owned by an old Marine buddy who offered to help. On the run after killing a corrupt cop, and nowhere to hide, he accepted. Decker would have done better to head for the hills, or surrender to the militia, however old friends could be persuasive and he soon found himself signing on as security officer of a starship with dubious owners and a dubious crew, doing things for his new employer that tested the old saying 'Once a Marine, always a Marine.' Curiosity was Decker's other major failing and in short order he was on the run, hunted by a shadowy government organisation, and in possession of a secret that could destroy the Commonwealth. It was a secret to die for, and the people on his trail wanted to make sure he did. Along the way, they forgot that he could still fight like one of the Few...
Some people never learn that it’s a really bad idea to mess with a Marine Pathfinder, even one who has been forced into early retirement. Zack Decker just wanted to be left alone so he could live a quiet life with the woman he loved and make up for lost time, but his enemies simply couldn’t resist the temptation to pursue their vendetta. One moment, he was hauling cargo across the depths of interstellar space, the next he was in the hands of pirates and headed for the barbaric worlds beyond the Coalsack nebula, to be sold into captivity. Marines don’t make good slaves and Zack was more than happy to show everyone why he should have been killed straight away, because he was coming back, looking for blood. Revenge might be cold comfort, but he would remind them once again that he was still one of the Few… Keyword Tags: Zack Decker, Decker’s War, sci-fi, science fiction, military science fiction, war, space marine, space infantry, pathfinder, space opera, science fiction action adventure, alien invasion, space fleet, sci-fi adventure, military sci-fi, Eric Thomson, science fiction series, interstellar war, galactic war, space pirates, mercenary, espionage, thriller, naval intelligence, undercover operations, black ops
Humanity's first empire collapsed centuries ago, but two tiny shards kept the ability to travel across the stars at faster than light speeds: the Wyvern Hegemony and the Republic of Lyonesse. Each considers itself the heir of the old empire and swore an oath of reunification. Yet only one can rule over humanity reunited. As they race to absorb ruined human worlds and rebuild them in their respective image, it is only a matter of time before they encounter the ghosts of what once was. And those ghosts will demand their due.
