Showing results by author "Alan Black" in All Categories

The new commander of the 1392nd Allied Protective Expeditionary Services is Hamisha Ann McPherson and this is her first command of anything larger than a squad. She is a larger-than-life combat veteran and a bonafide war hero. She knows combat. She also knows that combat is one thing, and that command is a warthog of a different and dubious color. Misha wonders if she has the necessary skills to turn this group of slackers, petty criminals, and losers into an effective fighting unit in the short time she has left.

Coming of age can be hard for anyone. But for Blackmon Perry Stone it is life threatening. At 15, he barely manages to graduate from the empire's cadet training by a talent for unusual problem solving. He has trouble settling into navy life, but life becomes harder when he uncovers a ring of thieves aboard the huge ship. Life becomes difficult when they killed him.

Sixteen-year-old Tasso Menzies just finished burying his grandfather next to his mother and grandmother on the family farm when he receives an order from his estranged uncle to come to Capital City.

Perry Stone hasn't gotten over his fear of being outside and he still hasn't settled into life in the Empire's Navy. After months of legal wrangling over his last assignment, he has been given a new assignment. He was looking forward to getting a new posting on a spaceship or a station. The problem is that his new job is on a planet.

Ensign Stone's goals were to make his way in the Empire's navy, make his family proud of him, and make love to his fiancée. No matter which way he turned, someone was conspiring against him. Disgraced and humiliated, he is court-martialed, discharged, and abandoned. Accepting what he thinks is a lowly busy-work position on a beat up old family business space freighter travelling at the edge of human space, he hopes to earn back the trust and respect he lost.

Stone's fist, secure in the combat suit and hidden by camouflage, impacted the Hyrocanian mouth before it closed around the baby. Stone grabbed the helpless piglet with his free hand and tossed it to a startled female. The piglet, the last of her kind on the delivery shuttle, grabbed the baby and ran. Stone twisted his fist, trying his best to break every tooth in the Hyrocanian's mouth. Suddenly, his fist broke free from the shattered teeth. Opening his fist, he felt something soft and squishy at the back of the alien's throat.

Chastity Snowden Whyte just wanted to mine for rocks, metal, and ice in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Rock mining in space was all she knew. It was all she was good at doing. She was comfortable living alone as the captain of her mining ship, the Sedona. She didn't want to have to make extra trips back to base because of equipment failure. She didn't want to become a mining tutor for a group of newcomers from Earth. And she certainly didn't want to get entangled in corporate conspiracies, piracy, kidnapping, murder, and worst of all...politics.

Sherlock Holmes, arguably the greatest fictional character ever created, returns along with his faithful friend, Dr. Watson, in five new stories pitting his deductive skills against all manner of gaslight villainy.

York August Sixteen was abandoned as a baby, abused and molested as a child, beaten and harassed as a teen, and had his rightful place in the Republic's Space Navy stolen from him. Fighting back against huge government systems was useless. Dispensing justice on an individual, case by case basis was more to his liking, yet even that was taken away when he was stationed on a lonely communication space station. York's life would change when he decided to seek justice for people even less fortunate than him.

The White Wind's captain looked forward to a smooth, profitable voyage, but mutineers steal his ship and kill, kidnap, or toss his passengers and crew into the sea. Saddled with the ship's most irritating passenger, he wonders why he doesn't let her drown, be eaten by dragons, or taken by hostile barbarians. He must find his crew, cross uncharted hostile lands, and fight a magician to take back the White Wind.

LillieBeth Hazkit is thrust into an adult world of evil and of evil men. She has to grow up much too fast, learning of love, of tribulation and of facing her demons with fire, fury, anger, and blossoming maturity. Growing up in the Ozarks in 1920, she loves everyone and in her 12 years of wisdom believes all people are endowed with love and kindness. Her daddy gets home only on weekends, so she and her mama take care of their small, rented farm.

When an orangutan goes on the lam, anything can happen. Chasing Harpo is an intriguing cast of quirky characters you'd like to visit with longer. Including the star, Harpo, an orangutan who believes humans are here purely for his entertainment and, of course, to deliver his food. A fun ride and a great adventure for all ages, as Harpo and his trusty servant, Carl, try to outwit the zoo security team, the police, the attorney general, and a gang of drug dealers.

Larry enjoyed raising cattle on his Kansas farm, until the aliens arrived. He couldn't help himself; he was going for a ride with aliens from outer space! The aliens wouldn't tell him where he was going, how long he would be gone, or if he was ever coming back, but a space trip sounded like more fun than beer and burgers at Benny's Been There and Done That Bar and Grill. He had to go. Larry's ride into deep space wasn't just a Sunday jaunt.