Showing results by author "William C. Dietz" in All Categories

It's 2552. Having barely escaped the final battle for Reach against the vast alien alliance known as the Covenant, the crew of the Pillar of Autumn, including Spartan John-117 - the Master Chief - and his AI companion Cortana, is forced to make a desperate escape into slipspace. But their destination brings them to an ancient mystery and an even greater struggle.

In the future, the terminally ill can prolong life by surrendering their consciousness to a cybernetic life form that is then recruited into the notorious Legion of the Damned, an elite fighting unit charged with protecting humanity.

For the poor, hardworking citizens of the Confederacy's fringe worlds, the Guild Wars have exacted a huge toll. Swayed by the promise of financial rewards, a new batch of recruits joins the fight. Eighteen-year-old Jim Raynor, full of testosterone and eager to make things right at home, ships off to boot camp and finds his footing on the battlefield, but he soon discovers that the official mission is not what he's really fighting for.

World War III is a month old. After sinking the Destroyer USS Stacy Heath, the Chinese invade Tibet and India counterattacks. Rather than allow the Chinese to seize control, the US sends 20,000 soldiers to join the fight. The Russians use the opportunity to invade Ukraine. American forces are spread thin, and the decision is made to evacuate all personnel from Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the Russians are holding a training exercise called Red Ice. Except that it isn’t a training exercise.

On May Day 2018, 60 meteors entered Earth's atmosphere and exploded around the globe with a force greater than a nuclear blast. Earthquakes and tsunamis followed. Then China attacked Europe, Asia, and the United States in the belief the disaster was an act of war. Washington, DC was a casualty of the meteor onslaught that decimated the nation's leadership and left the surviving elements of the armed forces to try to restore order as American society fell apart.

The Confederacy is threatened by an uprising of the Hudathans, an unfeeling cyborg race that has built up its forces through stolen technology, and their only opponents are the members of the Legion.

In the year 2038, an act of bioengineered terrorism decimated humanity. Those who survived were either completely unaffected or developed horrible mutations. Across the globe, nations are now divided between areas populated by “norms” and lands run by "mutants" - Detective Cassandra Lee of Los Angeles's Special Investigative Section has built a fierce reputation taking down some of the city's most notorious criminals.

On Black Friday, the aliens attacked. The human race was enslaved. But soon, everything will change.

There was a time when the Confederacy of Sentient beings ruled the galaxy. A time when the Legion of the Damned kept the peace. But no more. Autocrats rose and fell. Now mankind is ruled by a xenophobe named Cassidian, other races have retreated, and an interstellar war is brewing. The kind of war the Legion used to fight. But where are the legionnaires? “Retired,” some say. “Dead,” according to others. There are rebels, however, men and women who oppose Cassidian. But they need warships, and warships require pilots.

All her life, Lady Catherine Carletto (called Cat) has lived for nothing but the next party, the next lover, the next expensive toy. Until, in a bloodthirsty power grab, Imperial Princess Ophelia and her cadre of synth assassins murder her brother the emperor, and go on to purge the galaxy of his friends and supporters - including Cat’s family. The Carlettos are known to be staunch supporters of the Emperor and Carletto Industries has been in the forefront of his pet project - developing cybernetic technology for the masses.

Captured by the alien Ramanthians, diplomat Christine Vanderveen must protect the Confederacy's president from both their captors and fellow prisoners. But rescue is on the way, led by Lieutenant Tonio Sanchez, Vanderveens former lover, who must try to set aside his personal feelings for the sake of the mission.

As people fight to survive the aftereffects of more than a dozen meteor strikes, a group of wealthy individuals conspires to rebuild the United States as a corporate entity called the New Confederacy, where the bottom line is law. As a second civil war rages, with families fighting against families on opposite sides, Union president Samuel T. Sloan battles to keep the country whole.

Having stopped a mutiny against Earth's government, General Bill Booly and his troops face an even greater challenge: a battle for the future of every living being in the universe, against a fanatical human and his killer technology.

As the war heats up, the Russian plant is producing significant quantities of rhenium, a rare Earth element used to produce alloys for jet engines, filaments for mass spectrographs and electrical contacts. And, according to a CIA agent named Cassandra, the Russians are going to move a large shipment of rhenium out of the Kyshtym facility to Moscow in 24 days. A decision is made at NATO headquarters. Rather than allow the Russians to transport the rhenium, the Allies will create a pop-up infantry battalion and send it into Russian territory to hijack the shipment.

World War III is three months old. After attacking, and sinking the Destroyer USS Stacy Heath, the Chinese took possession of Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. Fortunately, India managed to stop the advance at the Ganges river. Rather than allow the Chinese to seize control of the entire subcontinent, the US sends 20,000 soldiers and marines in to support India. The Russians use the opportunity to invade Ukraine, which leaves NATO with no choice but to counterattack. A full-fledged European ground war begins.

Smuggler Pik Lando is hired by a beautiful woman named Angel, and suddenly he finds himself involved with her and a group of hell-bent revolutionaries...and there is a price on his head.

You're only a hero until your next battle. Legion General Bill Booly knows that peace is just a pause between wars. He's just crushed one uprising, and now a new rebellion is already brewing on a remote world light years away - spawning a web of terrorism that is close enough to catch the vulnerable Confederacy in its grasp.

In Andromeda's War, his heroine will face her ultimate test - as a battle-scarred legionnaire and as an innocent young woman who once lost everything... Now a platoon leader, Legionnaire Andromeda McKee seems to have successfully left behind her true identity of Lady Catherine "Cat" Carletto, one of the last two surviving members of the Carletto family targeted for death by Empress Ophelia. After failing at her one shot at vengeance, Andromeda had been questioning her own resolve.

In a Legion gone lax, Colonel Bill Booly, with his mixed blood and by-the-book attitude, is a misfit. So when he steps on some important toes, his punishment is assignment to the worst post in the galaxy: Earth. But Booly and his troops will turn out to be Earth's best line of defense, when a Legion-led military coup topples the government. It's Legionnaire against Legionnaire in a struggle that will be won by strength and courage.

World War III is a few months month old. After attacking and sinking the Destroyer USS Stacy Heath, the Chinese seize control of Nepal and Bhutan and push into India where the Allies manage to stop them. But for how long? Pakistan is attacking from the north - and China is preparing for the "big push" from the east. Worse yet, China's Ministry of State Security has orders to assassinate the Dalai Lama, rather than run the risk that he will inspire a Buddhist rebellion in Tibet.