Daniel Arenson

In this anthology, you'll find 17 tales of conflict and heroism, exploration and discovery, endurance and triumph. Flee the apocalypse of modern-day Earth, fly a fighter in the cold emptiness of deep space, and find new life on the distant shores of an alien world....

The grays, terrors from deep space, overwhelm our fleet. Our starships burn. Our armies shatter. Captains Marco Emery and Addy Linden launch a desperate quest....

In 1944, a secret Nazi experiment split the universe in two. In our universe, we won. Hitler died. Freedom prevailed. But in a parallel universe, the Nazis discovered the atom bomb first... and conquered the world.

They emerge from shadows. Hungry for flesh, they scurry forth. They are the marauders, the galaxy's deadliest predators. And they crave Earth....

It's all-out war. Our cities fall. Millions die. The scum, these cruel aliens from deep space, are determined to kill us all. So we must kill them. Humanity musters its greatest fleet....

We've faced aliens before. But nothing like this. This enemy is stronger, smarter, and crueler by far. And they want to kill us all....

They walk among us. They look just like us. They plot our doom. Some call them the scummers. Hybrids. Humans with alien DNA. Years ago, they hatched in alien labs. They came to Earth as sleeper agents. Since then, they’ve been mingling with our society....

Not long ago, the starship Freedom was a museum ship. A relic of a bygone era. A rusty old warship converted into a tourist trap. Then the aliens attacked. Now, once more, the legendary Freedom flies to war....

Earth burns. We call them the scum. They came from deep space. Creatures of claws and endless malice, they ravage the world. As the war flares, as cities crumble, Private Marco Emery....

The starship Freedom was once a mighty warship. Today, she's a tourist attraction. The space wars ended long ago. The Freedom is now a flying museum; the tourists love it. Then, on Christmas day, the aliens attack....

They came from deep space. They came to destroy us. Fifty years ago bloodthirsty aliens devastated the Earth. Most of humanity perished. We fell into darkness. But now we rise....

We hide in shadows. Our planet is lost. We are the last humans, and we must go home. Two thousand years ago, aliens destroyed Earth. Our fleets shattered. Billions died. The last humans fled a burning planet, heading to the stars. Today we are still refugees....

In the ruins, Requiem's last dragons lick their wounds and mourn a death among them. But they will not have long to grieve....

The galaxy burns. The enemy, a race of alien scorpions, storms from star to star. Planets smolder in their wake. Across the galaxy, they hunt humans. Long ago, we humans had a planet of our own. Long ago, we could have resisted the scorpions. But today we are refugees....

For years, Earth's heroes fought united. They faced alien armies in war. They defended Earth as friends. As a fellowship. Now they break apart. Lailani de la Rosa, heroine of the Alien Wars, aligns herself with a new enemy....

We call them the grays. For years, they lurked in shadows. For years, they struck from the dark. Kidnapping us. Torturing us. Studying us. Now they unleash their full fury....

They call themselves the next step in human evolution. But we call them "scummers." They are hybrids. Humans with alien DNA. They attacked us. They butchered us. Now we fight back. Under the leadership of Einav Ben-Ari, our brave soldiers fly to the scummer planet. To war.

They called her a relic. They said she would never fly again. They said she was too old. Too large. A floating museum. But now the starship Freedom is the only hope of mankind....

Jon Taylor is an Earthling. He doesn't care much about space. At least until his brother dies on Bahay, a war-torn planet many light-years away. After the funeral, Jon joins the army. He learns to kill. And he flies to Bahay, sworn to avenge his brother....

They say the world used to turn. They say that night would follow day in an endless dance. They say that dawn rose, dusk fell, and we worshiped both sun and stars....