Showing results for "The Price" in Hard Science Fiction

Izzy Umboto is a hero of the conflict between the Society of Humanity and the Unity Party. Instead of retiring and living out her days quietly, she's wrangled command of her very own warship. Unfortunately, that ship is the less-than-state-of-the-art Patton. Lieutenant Terrence Tordon, called "Trouble" by both his enemies and his friends, and even himself, is a career marine. The word "quit" isn't in his vocabulary. Now Lieutenant Trouble and his troops have signed on with Commander Umboto, trading a higher paycheck for the promise of action.

Zuri has the perfect life—a beautiful home on the Hillstead, a loving family, and a powerful job keeping the LA Basin’s grid humming. If only she didn’t see the ghost of her dead twin in the mirror. Her grief-counselor husband understands too much, Aunties Cora and Vivian smother her to excess, and her mother can’t look at her daughter without seeing the half that’s missing. Zuri can’t begin to face her sister’s little daughter—to Ruby, Zuri is the ghost. Which is why she’s running away to work, again, on the anniversary of her sister’s death.

Three hundred million years ago, the galactic community was taken by surprise. A catastrophic war with a hostile entity threatened to destroy all life until the fight was postponed by a calamitous event known as the Great Conflation. With the majority of pre-Conflation empires in ruins and the Ascended Biologicals wiped out, the hastily formed Wanderer Enclave tasked its fleet with unearthing answers and continuing the fight. One lone ship has found something: an innocuous world it had marked for routine decontamination that may hold vital answers.

This hacker thriller, ripped from the headlines of today's newspapers, envisions a chilling future where citizen hackers are pitted against unaccountable global actors. Everyone who stands up against oppression has to ask themselves – is freedom worth it?

Kayla Lieberman grew up in the American community of New Brooklyn but has never considered herself American. She is a Martian and proud of it. But when she is recruited into the department of outland security under the auspices of Charlotte Kensett, Kayla is faced with a choice…. Stand with Mars or turn her back on everything she ever knew.