Lieutenant Marcus Servus, officer and prisoner of the Penal Legion, serves on the desert world of Polema, the final bastion of the outer colonies. He and his soldiers, scum of the colonies, stand against insectoid boogeymen from another galaxy.Marcus has a gift. A curse. An edge against the Myriad: he hears music. Songs in his head guide him, granting him knowledge and foresight, a weapon against the alien hordes.The music is his ally, but who plucks...

Kwame Bahati donated his body to science. Pieces of him were removed for this and that; his kidneys were used to test a new medicine, his torso for training surgeons, and various other organs were designated as transplants for those who refused synthetic body parts for religious reasons.But his brain was sent to somewhere else entirely.A short story set in the Universe of War, twenty four years before the events of Symphony of War: The Polema Campaign....

Ever since the Founding, Colonial settlers whispered of ghost ships; silent, empty vessels drifting between the stars, steel tombs for their crew. Ships that set out from Earth and, for whatever reason, never made it to the stars.The causes were innumerable. A leaking reactor. A pathogen. An unstable passenger who took a knife and obeyed the voices in her head.Or worse.Recruited into the mysterious Synapse Foundation, Nicholas Caddy-still bearing...

Southport has fallen, and the claws of the Myriad crawl ever closer to the vulnerable city of New Panama. They reproduce endlessly, consuming their local environment and turning it into new soldiers.The Immortals expend tonne after tonne of ammunition fighting a perfectly evolved bioweapon that cares nothing for casualties. The days wear at them. Their systems begin to fail. And always, always, the Myriad advance.Nicholas Caddy must fight to save...

Peace in our time.The Toralii guns are silent. Humanity's home of Velsharn is secure. There are no more battles. No more wars. The machinations of a dying man have traded a single life for a species; Captain Melissa Liao's world is four iron walls and pain, but her suffering buys life for mankind. Her legacy is one of struggle, selflessness, and sacrifice.Held in the grasp of the Toralii Alliance, she takes little comfort in this. Is this the swansong...

Humanity has rebuilt on the world of Velsharn, forging the colony of Eden from the ashes of Earth. On Velsharn's verdant soil children are born, alliances are made and for a time, peace reigns. In high orbit, the debris of an entire Toralii fleet stands as mute testament to humanity's sovereignty; their right to this planet is unquestioned.Above the TFR Beijing, now the centrepiece in a flourishing city, the inky void of space is eerily silent. As...

Humans thought that they could stand amongst the older races. They believed, in their hubris, that the perils of interstellar travel could be mastered within a single generation. That they would be spared the wrath of the Toralii.Now humanity lies in ashes. The cradle of our civilization, Earth, is nothing more than a charred husk, a dead world in an empty solar system in an unremarkable corner of the galaxy.The war is over.We lost.Captain Melissa...

My name is Mike Magnet" Williams. I've come a long way. These days I have my own ship, the Rubens. We stole it from the Toralii Alliance. For the last year the Rubens has been tasked with 'counter-logistical privateering' against the Toralii Alliance, attacking their military supply network. We hit them hard, we get out, we do it all over again. Modern day buccaneers given total autonomy. We're alone, without another Human within a thousand light...

It's 2037. I'm Mike Williams, but you can call me 'Magnet'. Everyone else does. It's short for 'Chick Magnet', which is good old-fashioned military humour at its finest. At age fifteen, my face picked a fight with the propeller of my family's boat, on a shoal near Broome, off Western Australia. It was an accident, but, needless to say, the propeller won.Twelve years later, I was a not-so-ruggedly-handsome fighter pilot assigned to the TFR Sydney....

My name is Demon. I'm a good boy. I'm a good boy because my human, Emily, tells me so.One day, terrible lightning and thunder comes to Polema, and even more terrible things follow in its wake. Normally when storms come, the humans are not scared and comfort me.This time they are terrified.So now its me who has to be brave. I will protect my human, and I will be a good boy. No matter how scary the thunder or the monsters are.A short story set in the...