Showing results by author "Rick Partlow" in All Categories

Jack Bennet returns from the war to find the life he left behind has moved on without him. The only option he has to make ends meet lies in a military surplus junkyard starship. What’s a former Combat Search and Rescue soldier to do? Fix up the ship, hire the cheapest pilot—a notorious drunk—and take the first contract that comes up: collect a bounty on one of the most ruthless killers in the Pirate Worlds, a place crawling with thieves, cutthroats and con artists whose primary language is violence. Jack must abandon his nice guy persona, or exploit it, if he is to survive.

After his mom died from cancer, Wash gave up his girlfriend and his dream of being a career Army officer to stay home and take care of his father, a former Special Forces soldier stricken with PTSD. Wash works three jobs just to pay the bills, and one of them is at the ranch of the man who’s engaged to his exgirlfriend, Jimmy Bonner. Sound rough? He thought so too … until a portal to a hell-world of giant, insectoid aliens opens behind the ranch house, sucking Wash and Jimmy into the nightmare domain of the Hive Mind.

Jason McKay and Shannon Stark, two young Republic Space Fleet Intelligence officers, are given the leadership of a new special ops unit. The mission? Guard the spoiled daughter of an important senator. Neither thought the mission would be anything more than babysitting....Until the aliens invaded the colony. Implacable, relentless, merciless - the armored creatures will slaughter anyone. Survival will be the least of their challenges, as Jason and Shannon are forced to weigh the lives of the people they lead, and the ones they love, against their duty, honor, and planet.

It was every starship captain’s nightmare, and for Travis Miller, it was his own personal hell. He’d done everything by the book, but when the Tahni had attacked him and his crew, there was no choice but to return fire and destroy the first alien vessel humans had ever encountered. Excoriated in the press, his career in shambles, Travis is exiled to a long patrol of the outer colony worlds. Forgotten, except as a bad example...until the Tahni prove him right by declaring war on the human commonwealth.

Caleb Mitchell gave up everything to protect his home. Shunned by friends and family for abandoning the pacifist beliefs of their religion, abandoned by the love of his life, he left his home world of Canaan to go to the Commonwealth Military Academy on Earth and train to fight in the looming war against the implacable alien threat of the Tahni Imperium. When a training mission with a crew of cadets winds up caught in the middle of one of the worst battles of the war, Cal and his fellow students are officially declared dead.

Charlie has accepted a commission in the US Army and the duty to build Earth's defenses before the Anguilar return for a larger attack to conquer his homeworld once and for all. But Giblet has other ideas. Obsessed with revenge against the Anguilar General Zan-Tar for the death of the woman he loved, Gib steals a starfighter and sets off on a suicide mission for the heart of the Anguilar Empire. Charlie is forced to make a decision: do his duty to his home and his people...or race to save his friend on the road of vengeance.

Go to war or go to jail. For small-time street hustler Cam Alvarez, the choice is simple.... He has no family, no friends, no place in the world...nothing to lose. When his latest con results in the death of a cartel hit man, Cam opts to join the Marines and leave Earth to fight a vicious alien enemy. Drafted into the Marine Drop-Troopers, Cam discovers there’s one thing he’s even better at than running street-con games, and that’s killing the enemy.

Charlie Travers figures his life can’t get much worse. He lives over a pizza restaurant, he’s lost his girlfriend, and has no prospects for a career. Then, he’s abducted by an alien robot and taken across the galaxy. When he wakes up, he finds himself stranded thousands of light-years away, and about to be killed by space pirates.

Hausos is a peaceful farming colony. Once controlled by the Tahni, it's now settled by a collection of homeless refugees and war veterans, among them Cam and Vicky. Their life is pleasantly boring, quiet enough for demons from the war to nag at the corners of Cam’s mind on lonely nights. He fights the demons back with willpower and alcohol, determined to make this place home. But the peace doesn’t last.

Grant Masterson is a man with nothing left to lose.... A disgraced ex-cop, framed by a crooked politician, abandoned by his family, he’s forced into the life of a bounty hunter just to survive. Tracking down a traitor who stole military-grade weapons to sell on the black market, Masterson finds out things aren’t as simple as the wanted poster made them seem. Because Delia Beckett isn’t a traitor, simply a patsy, and the forces manipulating her may be the same ones responsible for Masterson’s fall from grace.

Chase Weston never would have thought that being the bodyguard for an archaeologist could be so dangerous - even this archaeologist digging for the remains of an alien civilization on another planet. But everyone wants what Dr. Angel Cortez has found. Because beneath the dirt and stone, an ancient mystery lies, a secret history, and a warning of an implacable alien enemy. And if the warnings are true, then corporate mercenaries and Sea Dragon commandoes are the least of Chase’s worries.

Four complete books. Explosive, military sci-fi action completes the entire second arc of the best-selling Drop Trooper Series.

The war is over...or that's what everyone thinks. Cam knows better. The Skrela are wiped out, but only Cam and Vicky know the truth, that Dwight and the other AI like him created the monstrous enemy to destroy the Predecessors. Burdened with this terrible secret, Cam must somehow maintain the tenuous peace between the humans and the Tahni until he and his Marines can return home.

As a sci-fi author with a hit TV show, I have a few ideas about what alien invaders are supposed to look like. In my stories, they’re technologically advanced monsters, with tentacles, and no faces. Turns out I was right about the technology. And about how angry they’d be. But the way they look…that’s more terrifying than even I could have imagined. They look exactly like us. Because they are us.

The war with the Tahni has dragged on for over two years, taking its toll on the lives of all involved. On the Aphrodite colony, Marine turned cybernetic commando Ryan Hendrix is readying his civilian militia to make one final strike against the enemy, in what they know could be a suicide mission. Back in Commonwealth space, Travis Miller and his task force have finally been given clearance to take back the occupied colony system, but the Tahni have had a year to prepare their defenses and the price in blood will be dear.

Cameron Alvarez and the crew of the Orion are hot on the trail of the Seekers, following the Predecessor faction on their quest to find the source of the Skrela infestation. But the crew is close to the breaking point, and their commander, Colonel Hachette, is long past it. The death of Sgt. Major Campbell has left him devastated and unable to lead.

For small-time street hustler Cam Alvarez, the choice is simple. He has no family, no friends, no place in the world...nothing to lose. When his latest con results in the death of a cartel hitman, Cam opts to join the Marines and leave Earth to fight a vicious alien enemy.

For Vicky Sandoval, home is wherever the she and Cam can make a life together, whether that’s back in the Commonwealth or right there in this strange new part of the galaxy. But the only way for any of them to find a home is to hunt down the mysterious Seekers, the faction of the ancient alien Predecessors who were tracking the source of the mindless Skrela war drones which had chased them off Earth tens of thousands of years ago. The Seekers have the gate and, just as importantly, they know where to find the demonic Skrela and put an end to them.

Terribly wounded during the battle for Hermes, Ryan Hendrix was repaired with cybernetics, transformed into a weapon by Fleet Intelligence...and covertly dropped onto the enemy-occupied colony at Aphrodite to sabotage the enemy and build up a civilian resistance. While Ryan fights the real battle behind enemy lines, Travis Miller and Jessica Leer struggle with politics...and their new commands.

Hard times make for strong men, and Antonin Murdock’s childhood was as rough as it gets. Now, he’s a Ranger, the only law for colonists seeking their fortune far from home. Murdock’s investigation into a missing freighter takes him to Coracaesium, a world he discovers has been turned into a stronghold by brutal pirate forces. They are more organized than anything he’s seen before, equipped with advanced weaponry, and led by a tactical and strategic genius.