Showing results by author "Tim C. Taylor" in All Categories

It's the 22nd century. Humanity has taken its first steps into the galaxy, and we've found ourselves in a vast playground of alien races and cultures. As the newest players on the universal stage, though, we're at the bottom of the food chain. Welcome back to the Four Horsemen universe, where only a willingness to fight and die for money separates humans from the majority of the other races. While some of the stories deal with mercenaries, others introduce listeners to the other guilds, organizations, and races that make up the landscape of the Four Horsemen universe.

War has come to the worlds of Humans. The rich planet of Tau-Rietzke, however, is far from Earth and the Mercenary Guild’s invasion, and its alien-registered mercenary companies are a safe haven for humans on the run. Organizations like the Midnight Sun Free Company. Having just completed another successful mission and taken possession of three Raknars, it was party time for Saisho Branco and the Midnight Sun personnel, and they were enjoying a little down time...until the war spilled over into their corner of the galaxy and two competing organizations showed up to steal the Raknars.

Defeated in battle, the fractious alliance of Goltar, Spine Patriots, and the Midnight Sun Free Company are chased across the Spine Nebula by the Endless Night and their sea-monster allies, the Tyzhounes. Abandoning the nebula is not an option. For the free trader skipper, Lenworth Jenkins, the people of its 15 tormented worlds are the cause he’s been searching for all his life.

2566 AD. Unlike the other Marines on board the troop ship Beowulf, when 18-year-old Arun McEwan is woken from cryo to board an enemy ship, he already knows that he will survive: his destiny to lead the Human Legion has been foretold. But there are other factions who will stop at nothing to bring about their rival dreams for humanity's future. Isolated on a ship rocked by mutiny, betrayal, and murder, Arun must find new allies amongst the most detested of the Navy crew: the freaks.

It is AD 2565. When 17-year-old Marine cadet Arun McEwan forges an unlikely friendship with an alien scribe, he crashes into a world of treachery and conspiracy. How can he possibly survive three more years until graduation when every day brings a new deadly threat? But survive he must because his new alien allies show him glimpses of his destiny - a vision of a better future that only he can forge. A dream called the Human Legion.

The Goltar were marginalized, and the Veetanho did everything they could to make the galaxy forget the Goltar had ever existed. The Goltar went quietly, pretending to sulk and accept their fate but they never did. They worked in the shadows, amassing power and resources, always looking for the right time and right opportunity to re-emerge and strip the hated Veetanho of everything they owned. In the depths of the Spine Nebula, a fly-over region known only for the bad luck of its inhabitants and the dangers that lurks in its fringes, the Goltar have a secret weapon.

Fifteen outstanding authors. Fourteen extraordinary stories. One best-selling universe. It’s the 22nd century. The galaxy has opened up to humanity as a hyperactive beehive of stargates and new technologies, and we suddenly find ourselves in a vast playground of different races, environments, and cultures. Enter the Four Horsemen universe, where only a willingness to fight and die for money separates humans from the majority of the other races. Enter a galaxy not only of mercenaries, but also of aliens, hired assassins, and accountants. Accountants?

Having destroyed the starkiller located at Aneb-4, the alliance of Goltar, Spine Patriots, and the Midnight Sun Free Company have gained a bit of breathing space from the criminal organization known as the Endless Night. But the Endless Night isn’t done. They have two more starkillers in their possession, and they are ready to use them against a civilization that no one - especially the Mercenary Guild - is going to miss. Their target: Sol. Although victorious on Aneb-4, the alliance only has the façade of combat power; they need time to re-equip and rearm…time they don’t have.

AD 2568. As Major Arun McEwan readies the newly formed Human Legion to retake his home planet of Tranquility, loyalties are wafer thin, and morale is low. Even his closest friends harbor poisonous secrets. And he needs everyone beside him, because the legion must strike boldly and win allies rapidly if it is to defeat the overwhelming numbers of an enemy led by Arun's old nemesis. What the legion discovers will scar Arun's heart and change the meaning of the word human forever.

Cut off from the rest of Chimera Company, Lily Hjon and her Militia comrades are sent to Eiylah-Bremah, a totalitarian world where failure to report a crime earns the same penalty as committing it. Following her orders means supporting a regime that sickens her, but joining the rebellion would mean fighting for a group that could be even worse.

Sergeant Osu Sybutu of the Legion had a simple mission. Take five men and travel unobserved to a location in the capital where he would deliver a coded phrase to a contact. Simple, that is, except for the fact that there was a war going on, and all the different factions he had to pass by on the way would cheerfully shoot him on sight. And that was only if the planet didn’t kill him first.

Across a thousand battlefields and a million wars, there is always a question. What do you do when all the chips are on the table? Do you run? Try to find salvation in the arms of an easy peace? Or do you stand and fight? Send your enemies into whatever hole they crawled out of? On Deadly Ground has 10 stories handling that exact question. Each character faces the impossible in different ways, but all will be tested before the day is done. Can they earn a heroic victory amongst the endless eternity of space, or are they doomed to fall into obscurity?

With his alien co-pilot at his side and a grin stretching across his face, Captain Fitz keeps one jump ahead of his creditors and one jump behind fabulous illicit riches. He likes it that way, even if he wouldn’t mind getting the riches…some day. Now he is chasing the biggest payoff of his career, and he’s hired a new team of marines to help win it. They call themselves Chimera Company, but they want him to be someone else.