Helfort S War Book 3 The Battle Of Devastation Reef

If he survives, hell just may freeze over. The savage Hammer Worlds are not only near invincible but almost certain to win their war to crush the Federated Worlds and control humanspace–unless the Feds can find and destroy their secret antimatter warhead facility. Only dreadnoughts, the lone Federated ships able to withstand antimatter missile attacks, can do the job, and only Lieutenant Michael Helfort has the skill to lead them. But skill may not be enough, because Helfort is more than the newly appointed captain: He’s a hero, and this means that his own senior officers want him to fail–and that the enemy’s kingpin wants him dead. Helfort’s early victories merely intensify everyone’s determination. No action is too low, no price too high, to bring him down–with treachery, or betrayal, or an offer he can’t refuse, even if it means selling out his own side.

It was insane, it was suicidal, it was wrong— and by God he was going to do it. The Hammer Worlds have Helfort exactly where they want him. The ultimatum is brutal and precise. Unless the Federated hero surrenders, the Hammer World’s prisoner Anna Cheung—the only woman Helfort has ever loved—will be handed over to a bunch of depraved troopers to be violated, then executed by firing squad. Helfort can obey, or he can do what the crew proposes: sail his three frontline dreadnoughts into the Hammers’ stronghold Commitment Planet, liberate Anna and the rest of the POWs held captive there, and continue the fight in the jaws of the enemy. Helfort’s decision? Bring it on!

He thought Hell was the worst they could throw at him. He was wrong. Back from tangling with the Hammer of Kraa, the most brutal, trigger-happy tyrants in humanspace, Junior Lieutenant Michael Helfort is assigned to the Federated Worlds heavy cruiser Ishaq, which is struggling to rise to the threat posed by a newly resurgent Hammer. Aboard the floundering ship, Helfort is coming to grips with a painful injury and the unpleasant truth that nobody likes a young hero–least of all senior officers. Without warning, the Ishaq and twenty-seven Fed merchant ships are blown apart in a horrific ambush, the first step in the Hammer’s master strategy to destroy the hated Federated Worlds. Michael and a pitiful remnant of the Ishaq’s crew escape the inferno. The Feds have no idea who’s behind the heinous attack, and the Hammer are determined to keep it that way, consigning the Ishaq’s survivors to a prison camp deep in the wilderness of the Hammer’s home planet. No one’s getting out alive to derail the Hammer’s lethal master plan–especially not the FedWorlds hero who so humiliated them on the battlefield. It’s payback time, and the Hammers intend to throw their entire space fleet into destroying Michael Helfort and the Federated Worlds. Too bad it won’t be enough.

“A planet-stomping space opera that bursts off the page like a tactical nuke.”—John Birmingham, author of Weapons of Choice The Hammer Worlds—the most brutal and oppressive interstellar government in the universe—have hijacked the Federated Worlds cruise ship Mumtaz, seizing its valuable terraforming cargo and damning its passengers to mining the moons of the prison planet known as Hell. For Junior Lieutenant Michael Helfort and the crew aboard deep space scout vessel 387, the mission is clear: infiltrate enemy territory, locate the Mumtaz, and rescue the prisoners. The odds are appalling, and the damage will probably be fatal, but victory is nonnegotiable–especially for Helfort, whose mother and sister were on the Mumtaz. And Michael Helfort will be damned if he’ll let his family rot on the moons of Hell.

BURNING WATERS Designated Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, Matt Reddy must now contend with a new threat; the Dominion—humans whose lust for power matches the Grik. But even though the Grand Alliance recognizes the danger of the Dominion, it must deal with the land-based Grik first, leaving the Imperial navy—and USS Walker—with little assistance. As war rages, more Japanese ships come through the time-space maelstrom that the Americans call The Squall. One is a “Hell Ship,” carrying prisoners of an Imperial Japan that is growing ever more ruthless in the face of looming defeat. Escorting it is a new, state-of-the-art destroyer, whose officers recognize no rules of war. Fighting on two fronts, Reddy is plunged into a firestorm of loyalty, betrayal, and sacrifice. But nothing can prepare him for a devastating new Grik weapon—a weapon that could wipe out all who oppose them…

As the “gripping”* epic from the author of Sword of the North continues, the Grim Company must battle a dangerous new enemy that is determined to destroy all of humanity... In the City of Towers, former rebel Sasha and her comrade Davarus Cole struggle to keep the peace between the warring mages who vie for dominion. But when the White Lady sends Davarus south to the Shattered Realms to seek allies among the fallen kingdoms, he finds that his hardest battle may be one fought within. The godly essence now residing within him offers power that could be used against the Fade—but with every death that feeds It, Cole risks losing a part of himself. An association with a Fade officer grants the Halfmage Eremul a position of privilege among Dorminia’s new masters. He witnesses firsthand the fate that awaits humanity. But with his magic pitiful in the face of the Fade’s advanced technology, the Halfmage must rely on his wits alone to save whom he can… And in the frozen north, the legendary warrior Brodar Kayne fights a desperate battle for his people. He is running out of time: an ancient evil sealed beneath the mountains is about to break free, an evil that is older than humanity, older than the Fade, older even than the gods—and it will not stop until the entire world is drowned in blood…

The bad girl of the magical underworld is back and badder than ever Someone wants Marla Mason dead. Usually that’s not news. As chief sorcerer of Felport, someone always wants her dead. But this time she’s the target of a renegade assassin who specializes in killing his victims over days, months, or even years. Not to mention a mysterious knife-wielding killer in black who pops up in the most unexpected places. To make matters worse, an inmate has broken out of the Blackwing Institute for criminally insane sorcerers—a troubled psychic who can literally reweave the fabric of reality to match her own traumatic past. With her wisecracking partner Rondeau reluctantly in tow, Marla teams up with a “love-talker” whose dangerous erotic spells not even she can resist. Together they’re searching the rapidly transforming streets of Felport for a woman who’s become the Typhoid Mary of nightmares, infecting everything—and everyone—she touches with a chaos worse than death itself.