Maps define our lives as they define our world. What were once the priceless resources of a brave and lonely few as they set off into the unknown are now carried in the pockets of billions around the globe. But they were never merely lines on paper - while depicting our geography we infused them with our intelligence, our desires, our imagination, and our memories. Yesterday, we mapped the world only after we discovered its secrets. Today we map the mind and the body, and slowly unveil the universe before we set off into its infinite domains. Maps may have changed, but they are also changeless: they will always guide us. This anthology charts eighteen worlds which are beautiful, frightening, alien, familiar - sometimes none of these, sometimes all. These stories cover every corner of the speculative map, featuring horror, science fiction, steampunk, high fantasy and more, in styles ranging from the literary and the lyrical to the pulpy and the thrilling. Wherever you find yourself, there's only one thing you can ever know for sure: YOU ARE HERE Now go explore...

In the final days of the empire, Cyborg Corps Colonel Leonidas Adler plans to die in a manner befitting of an imperial officer: he will fight until his last breath, giving his life to defend Emperor Markus. As it was meant to be. But when the emperor himself summons him for a final special mission, how can he refuse?

A fighter pilot on a mission to reunite with her daughter. A cyborg soldier on a quest to regain his humanity. Mortal enemies during the war, they must now work together to salvage a seventy-year-old freighter and navigate the gauntlet of pirates, scavengers, mercenaries, and other pitfalls that stand in their way after the fall of the largest empire mankind has ever known. This set includes: Book 0.5: Last Command Book 1: Star Nomad Book 2: Honor’s Flight Book 2.5: Starfall Station Book 3: Starseers.

The Alliance has toppled the tyrannical empire. It should be a time for celebration, but not for fighter pilot Captain Alisa Marchenko. After barely surviving a crash in the final battle for freedom, she's stranded on a dustball of a planet, billions of miles from her young daughter. She has no money or resources, and there are no transports heading to Perun, her former home and the last imperial stronghold. But she has a plan. Steal a dilapidated and malfunctioning freighter from a junkyard full of lawless savages. Slightly suicidal, but she believes she can do it. Her plan, however, does not account for the elite cyborg soldier squatting in the freighter, intending to use it for his own purposes. As an imperial soldier, he has no love for Alliance pilots. In fact, he's quite fond of killing them. Alisa has more problems than she can count, but she can't let cyborgs, savages, or ancient malfunctioning ships stand in her way. If she does, she’ll never see her daughter again.

A quick stop to drop off some refugees before heading to Perun turns into far more of an adventure than Alisa and her crew planned... If you sign up for the author's Fallen Empire newsletter, you will receive “Saranth Three” for free.

After spending four years fighting for the Alliance, fighter pilot Alisa Marchenko only wants one thing: to reunite with her young daughter. But this involves a journey to her former home world, which has become the last imperial stronghold. Since the imperials have a lot of reasons to loathe members of the Alliance right now, just getting down to the planet will be a challenge, and it doesn’t help that her passengers are stirring up trouble of their own… Even if Alisa is able to land, she may find that more questions await her than answers, and that her late husband kept a startling secret from her, one that could change her life forever.

Included as a short story within the Fallen Empire Omnibus (Books 1-3, and prequel)

The mysterious and powerful Starseers have Captain Alisa Marchenko's daughter, and she will do whatever she must to get her back, even if it means traveling to their stronghold and confronting them personally. Unfortunately, her strongest ally, the cyborg Leonidas, may become a liability since the cyborgs and the Starseers have a long history of hating each other. It doesn’t help that Leonidas and Dr. Dominguez have a mission of their own, one that could jeopardize all that Alisa is fighting for.

Captain Alisa Marchenko finally has a lead on finding her daughter, but her passengers want her to take them on their quest instead. Even though the Star Nomad is her ship, they have power she cannot fight, and she finds herself with no choice but to accept another detour. But the ancient relic they seek has the ability to destroy worlds and is coveted by many. The path leading to it is riddled with competitors and littered with the dead, and even a cyborg and a Starseer may not be strong enough to fight the obstacles in the way. Swept up in a fate she never chose, Alisa must find a way to survive against impossible odds, knowing that if her passengers succeed, they will change the course of history—maybe not for the better.

The trip to Cleon Moon for Alisa to find her daughter

Now that she’s retrieved the Staff of Lore, Captain Alisa Marchenko can finally dedicate herself and her ship to finding her kidnapped daughter. Her scant clues lead her to Cleon Moon. Unfortunately, since the fall of the empire, mafia clans have taken over the domed cities on the harsh moon, and exploring there isn’t easy. Even with the cyborg Leonidas at her side, Alisa struggles to survive vengeful mafia clans, rogue Starseers, and genetically engineered predators. To further complicate matters, she must worry about the ancient relic hidden on her ship, a beacon to anyone in the system who craves its power. If Alisa can’t navigate the moon’s chaos, she may lose her only chance to catch up with her daughter.

With the man who kidnapped her daughter imprisoned aboard her ship, Captain Alisa Marchenko is closer than ever to reuniting her family. But her new guest has been in a coma for weeks, with the secret to her daughter's location locked away in his mind. She must find a way to sneak him into a state-of-the-art hospital on Arkadius, a planet in the heart of Alliance territory. Not an easy task when she and the cyborg Leonidas, her most trusted ally, are wanted by the Alliance army. As if that mission weren’t daunting enough, the Staff of Lore has appeared on the planet. As has the man who stole it: Alisa’s father.

After failing to catch up with her daughter Jelena so many times, Alisa's optimism is battered, but her determination has never waned. She, Leonidas, and their eclectic crew are hunting down a Starseer research station in the heart of the Kir Asteroid belt—Jelena's supposed location. Alisa vows that she will find her daughter if she has to search a million asteroids to do so. But Jelena and her close friend, Prince Thorian, have attracted the interest of many factions, and the Star Nomad isn’t the only ship on the hunt…

Alisa Marchenko has reunited with her daughter, and even though she hasn’t figured out how to get Jelena to accept Leonidas yet, she dreams of the three of them starting a new life together. They can return the Star Nomad to its original purpose of running freight and staying out of trouble (mostly). Before that can happen, Alisa must fulfill the promise she made to Jelena: that she and her crew will retrieve young Prince Thorian, the boy who has become Jelena’s best friend. But Thorian was kidnapped by the rogue Starseer Tymoteusz, the man who wants to use the Staff of Lore to take over the entire system—and the man who may have the power to do it. Alisa doesn’t know why he kidnapped Thorian, but Tymoteusz once promised to kill the prince, so she fears they don’t have much time. Unfortunately, Tymoteusz hasn’t left a trail of breadcrumbs. Finding him will be difficult, and even if they’re successful, facing him could be suicidal. To have a chance of surviving, Alisa will have to come up with her greatest scheme yet.

Another epilogue of our loyal crew. A very domestic scene is documented.

The Year's Best Military & Adventure SF series roars into its fourth year, with more stories of derring-do, military combat, and edge of your seat suspensen. Thrilling tales of grand science fiction adventure and military action. Selected from the top print and digital markets, represent the best in modern military sf, space opera, and adventure sf, these stories are guarentted to challenge, provoke, and entertain. Contents; - Preface (The Year's Best Military & Adventure SF: Volume 4) • essay by David Afsharirad - The Secret Life of Bots (2017) / novelette by Suzanne Palmer - The Snatchers (2017) / short story by Edward McDermott - Imperium Imposter [View from the Imperium] (2017) / short story by Jody Lynn Nye - A Thousand Deaths Through Flesh and Stone (2017) / short story by Brian Trent - Hope Springs (2017) / novelette by Lindsay Buroker - Orphans of Aries (2017) / novelette by Brad R. Torgersen - By the Red Giant's Light (2017) / short story by Larry Niven - Family Over Blood [Grainne War] (2017) / novelette by Kacey Ezell - A Man They Didn't Know (2017) / short story by David Hardy III - Swarm (2017) / short story by Sean Patrick Hazlett - A Hamal in Hollywood (2017) / novelette by Martin L. Shoemaker - Lovers [Grainne War] (2017) / novelette by Tony Daniel - The Ghost Ship Anastasia (2017) / novelette by Rich Larson - You Can Always Change the Past (2017) / short story by George Nikolopoulos - Our Sacred Honor [Honor Harrington Universe] (2017) / novelette by David Weber .

Former Cyborg Corps soldier Jasim Antar was relieved to come out of the war alive and looked forward to switching to a less violent line of work. But nobody wants to hire a brawny cyborg to do anything that doesn’t involve brutalizing people on a daily basis. Stuck working as a debt collector alongside an eccentric pilot who enjoys knitting gifts for her grandkids when she isn’t blowing people up, Jasim longs to find a more peaceful existence. But peace is elusive when you have a violent past. While on a routine mission, Jasim comes across the body of a soldier he served with during the war. He soon learns that someone is murdering former members of the Cyborg Corps, men who should be extremely difficult to kill. And he’s next on the list. Jasim steels himself to reach out to the one person he’s certain can help, his old commander: Colonel Leonidas Adler. Adler is strong, smart, and deadly, good traits to have in an ally. Unfortunately, he remembers Jasim as a misfit rather than a model soldier, and convincing him to join forces may be even tougher than finding and facing the killer.

There are rebels among the stars... Meet eleven protagonists battling to save themselves and the ones they love. Human, cyborg, clone, or alien, they'll find themselves pitted against intergalactic crime bosses, interstellar mercenaries, a quantum-wave-riding collective mind, and the universe itself. Along the way, there's plenty of action, adventure, humor, and even some romance. Written by the freshest voices in science fiction, these stories are short, but they'll light your imagination like a solar flare. Strap yourself in and join the rebellion! Download this collection today. About the Star Rebels Stories: A Tale of Two Ships by Audrey Faye A KarmaCorp Story Two ships crash into an unimportant digger rock. The first carries a newborn baby. The second will rewrite her destiny. Carl Sagan's Hunt for Intelligent Life in the Universe by C. Gockel An Archangel Project Story Sometimes intelligent life is right in front of your whiskers. Blood Ties by Christine Pope A Gaian Consortium Story On the outlaw world of Iradia, Miala Fels and her computer hacker father discover that taking the wrong commission can have unexpected consequences. Passage Out by Anthea Sharp A Victoria Eternal Story Street rat Diana Smythe has long since given up her hopes of escaping Earth, but that doesn't mean she can't watch the ships fly in and out of the spaceport and dream... Arcturus 5 by D.L. Dunbar A Twenty Sectors Story Xella went to Arcturus 5 to mediate a simple trade dispute between the Mol and the Dark, but now she's not sure she'll get out alive. Treason's Course by L.J. Cohen A Halcyone Space Story In the midst of Earth's first off-planet war, a soldier is given a covert assignment and must decide if treason lies in carrying out her orders or disobeying them. _ Falling_ by Pippa DaCosta A Girl From Above Story Trapped in a scrappers rig with a woman he's been hired to kill, Caleb Shepperd is beginning to wonder if this job could be his last. Starfall Station by Lindsay Buroker A Fallen Empire Story After the empire falls, cyborg soldier Leonidas Adler must avoid the Alliance operatives who want him for secrets only he knows, but that's easier said than done. Worse, his past threatens those he's traveling with, including Alisa, the freighter captain he has come to care about. _ Luminescence_ by Patty Jansen An ISF-Allion World Story Hadie learns the price of being an artificial human when her partner has an accident and becomes unresponsive. Glome by James Wells A Great Symmetry Story Humanity's first interstellar colony ship has arrived at its destination, only to find an inhospitable death trap of a planet. Crew member Amanda Bowen wishes that was the biggest problem she faced. Unfinished by Kendra C. Highley An Unstrung Story In a world where genetically-engineered humans serve as slave labor to "real humans," two prototype children, designed to be the most superior models ever created, look to each other to find a way to escape their fate.