The Earth has been the loving mother of humanity for thousands of years, but now humanity has left the cradle broken in its efforts to reach the stars. Those left behind have not fared well, but the efforts of the Conwin family and others have held the world together . . . oft time with an Iron Fist, but successfully nonetheless amid the strife since the lights went out. Lian Conwin's assassination has changed everything, though, and the Imperium...

Earth is not the cradle of humanity. It is the Throne. Almost four hundred years the Terran Imperium has languished, an Empire in name only. The young colonies exploded out of the Diaspora Era, supplanting the homeworld in importance as they left a broken world in their wake. Earth's people, guided by the Conwin line, have clawed and climbed from the darkness left the night the lights went out. They built and rebuilt the weary and weakened world...

The first shots of war have been fired, now it's a race against time to stop a headlong rush before someone fires the last shots. The alien probe that created dozens of superhuman weapons and unleashed them on Houston has a new testing site, the city of Hong Kong, and Alexander Hale has been asked to intervene. With no idea who, or how, the experiments on people are being done he slips into the city to try and find out what ever he can, but beyond...

"Beyond the confines of our small world, far from the glow of our star, lies a galaxy and universe much larger and more varied than anyone on Earth can possibly imagine. For the new NAC spacecraft Odyssey and her crew, the unimaginable facets of this untouched world are about to become reality. The Odyssey's maiden voyage is an epic adventure destined to make history. Captain Eric Weston and his crew, pushing past the boundaries of security, encounter...