We—humanity—didn’t come this far by being afraid. Explorers and visionaries have willingly headed off to certain death for thousands of years and by doing so brought us to where we are today. No one has...

Alexis, please mind your mouth. Cursing in Russian is still cursing.

Do you love me?” His voice rang flat in his own ears, deadened and weighted with the recognition there was only one chance, and a fool’s chance at that

Reluctantly, we had already accepted every challenge at the moment we were born. And as long as we live, we have no right to give up. For we, or at least someone very similar to...

We won—this little conflict and a thousand like it—because we were destined to win. The universe will allow no other outcome.

Usually for the same reason you were unconscious, I think.

I knew what made you tick from the moment we first met. That’s why I punched you between the legs.”~ #1001 & Caleb

She didn’t want to be the savior of humanity. She never had. She didn’t want to be the vanguard—of destruction or salvation. What she had really wanted was to be a girl whose father lived...

That excuse only works until you discover the person is merely an individual like any other.

Arrest me. Torture me. Parade me about in the public square. You will have your prize catch. And you will lose everything.

We want to know. We want to know who we are and what we are capable of.I want to know.And yet we were dragged into another war. Another seemingly inevitable and gruesome legacy passed down,...

If I knew that, ma’am, I probably wouldn’t need to be there.

She burst into her hotel room pulling her blouse over her head with one hand while she yanked her shoes off with the other. No way was she going to face an alien invasion in...

His whisper continued to stream a silent cacophony of warnings, kill and damage reports and pleas for assistance.He allowed himself two seconds to watch it and came away with the sense they were losing. Not...

He simply preferred the sensation of soil beneath his feet and wind in his hair, of fresh, non-recycled air which carried on it the scent and taste of life. He preferred what was solid and...

God, she was beautiful. Hair a tangled mess, clothes torn, lips pale and swollen, skin streaked in dirt. And she was so damn beautiful and flawed and perfect.

I thought carefully as I watched Eyuran treat Uncle Orewen’s wounds. There is no one in their right mind who would assault a Danna, simply because the enemy of an individual becomes the enemy of...

He made sure his tone remained casual. He was trying to keep his son unaware of the encroaching alien invasion for as long as he could, be it another day or another hour. Once innocence...

He did not have time to wallow, to give a moment’s thought to what may have happened to her or whether she was alive.Turn into the punch, grab hold of the gun, leap into the...

Oh, Valkyrie, you have no idea.” Tell me then.

He swallowed hard, annoyed at the sudden dryness in his throat. No reason to become all emotional about it now. He had already sold his soul for a chance at vengeance, and there was no...

Science fiction is for real, space opera is for fun.

Deep in the recesses of her mind, she knew they were probably watching. They watched everything, after all.Let them watch. Let them see what it meant to be human. To live.Let them see what it...

Personally, I could care less about how people chose their graves. What I do care about is that I don’t want to be dragged along into one, especially by someone who has already lived their...

Alone for a few precious seconds, he drew in a deep breath. He stood on a ruined street in a ruined city. Destruction stretched for kilometers in every direction, all caused by a single man...

Above the curving arc of the planet, a mammoth explosion plumed crimson and charcoal then erupted in a starburst of crystaline white which for a microsecond shone brighter than a sun. For the briefest moment...

She thought he might have said her name, but it was background radiation accompanying the hum in her ears and the symphony in her head——a song of quantum mechanics and trajectory calculations and astroscience physics...

Yes, she loved her ship more than she had loved him. But what she loved even more was what it gave her: freedom, and the key to the marvels of space. It gave her the...

The fire crackled. On Jutaire, without oxygen, the fire is different. Fed by different air. Maybe it wishes it were orange, for it sputters and reaches up to the sky with angry fists of blue...

If her daughter’s ship had been disintegrated in space there would never be evidence of it, never an answer to what had happened to her.If she stopped to ponder the implications she might break. And...

It wants and needs to be satisfied,” his low voice soaked into my skin.

Alex, I can’t.

His punch knocked her back a meter into the wall. His fist had moved of his own volition, carrying a rage and frustration all its own. To his dismay, she didn’t fall. People so small...

I need a shielded containment box, radiation gloves and a micro welding torch. And a crescent wrench.

Just so we’re very clear. If I want to kill you, I can kill you.

When I think of war, I see blood. Pain and suffering. Nothing good comes from war.But there is good. There will be an outcome. One side will find peace, solace. While the other will end...

She gazed at the bay of wrecked shuttles in dismay. The last of her adrenaline seeped away at the sight of the widespread destruction.It occurred to her then, for perhaps the first time in this...

All these years that I had been waiting for him to return, I had been too anxious and somewhat insecure to develop any plan of action. I had scrupulously avoided giving any thought to it...

I did say I came to rescue you. They were in my way.

How delusional are you, aliens in your head notwithstanding?

Time slowed as metal shards enveloped her like shattered glass. None pierced her of course, but it seemed as though she might be able to reach out and pluck one from the sky.She settled for...

He had seen many criminals in his years in Division. Dangerous men and even more dangerous women. Small-time hucksters and savvy crime lords. Spies, gangsters, assassins, insurgents and wannabe-revolutionaries. True believers and soulless mercs willing...

I saw the Earth, yes. I saw the colors so magnificent, so vivid, so real. It was hope so large and round, green and blue.

He wanted to grind every Federation world into dust beneath his boot as his army blazed a trail of blood and corpses all the way to Seneca.He wanted to storm their inner sanctum and fire...

Meanwhile here I am- Earthborn woman, a mere barbaric maula, geting deeper into Imperial Space with each passing light second. I should be trembling with fear, I suppouse. No. Let the Emperor tremble. Laylah is...

As the sky began to darken she sank down in the chair. She had just watched over a thousand Alliance soldiers die in the space of less than a minute. Yet the encounter would be...

Don’t let go.

Which does not alter the fact that you are insane.

No…you can ask for a beautiful, witty, intelligent yet minxy woman in your arms every night, a mansion on a hill—or better yet in the sky—and the best bodyguards to protect you when someone does...

… But my voice is too soft. The wind picks up my words and swallows them whole.