Showing results by narrator "Dave Cruse" in All Categories

You know, there are some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed. This was one of those days. My head hurt. There was blood everywhere. My ship was shot full of holes and leaking more gases and fluids than a 1976 Chevy Vega...the one with an aluminum block. I should have just pulled the sheets up and rolled over when I had the chance....

Things were looking up for Jack. He and Kayla had married, were expecting their first baby, and moved into a nice house on New Harmony. Kayla was due to give birth any day, but Jack is pulled away on a case that could threaten their newfound happiness and the peace of the Alliance. An Alliance starship, believed to have been destroyed 17 years ago during the war, has mysteriously appeared without its crew.

His touch can heal or harm. His fate is solitary. His agony belongs to us all…He was born on a day of pain: November 22, 1963. He came of age in agony: that moment of tragedy when fun-loving rock-and-roll deejay Paul Handler discovered the inexplicable power in his own hands. It is the power to make the wounded whole again. The power to make the lame walk and to heal the sick. It is a power that will sap his soul and plunge him into the world of a famous faith healer. It is a power that can turn to rage, even murder. It is a gift that makes Paul Handler a living, breathing human sacrifice. For thousands of years, a secret cabal has guarded the lineage to which Paul is heir — scapegoats who have been forced to bear humanity's anguish upon themselves. Now, while the cabal searches for him, and one man seeks to destroy him, Paul makes a lonely, frightening journey to the core of his identity and to his destiny … to all the pain his soul can bear, to all the redemption he can give, to the freedom that is death.

Captain Rebecca Tansky is facing a court-martial. Reilly and Mitchell have to investigate why she went rogue and committed treason by violating a treaty with a planet that has the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. Reilly knows there is more than what meets the eyes, and they need to discover the truth before Tansky faces a firing squad and the Alliance is drawn into a conflict that they can not win.

Opportunities there are few and far between...that is, unless you're willing to put on a uniform. For ace-pilot Deborah Allen Riker (aka “Admiral Dare”), life had never been easy. She's defended Earth against countless enemies, both alien and human alike. Now she's retired. Committed to a life of solitude and studying the aliens she spent a lifetime fighting...until she finds herself dragged into a new conflict. A conflict she never saw coming.

Avington, Bryngate, Teris Falls, village after village felt the stilling touch of the iceman. Sanctuaries left in ashes, entire populations of First One followers left silent and cold, Alastair led a secret cadre of Wolfguard assassins on a historic murderous rampage. How then could the bloodthirsty, remorseless persecutor of the faithful...become their greatest champion? What happened in Salkyrie Vale in the midst of the screams and flames? How did the decades long feud between Alastair and Cythraul begin? Listen to Coldhollow, a Myridian Constellation origin story to find out.

From its inception in the 1880s, The Norfolk & Western Railway primarily carried freight but as a sideline, it always provided passenger service. A profitable, well-run company, N&W only accepted the very best. As World War II ended, N&W offered several named trains along its main line, including the Cavalier, the Pocahontas, and its daytime flagship the Powhatan Arrow.

Eighth graders discover a dragon egg on the beach, a unicorn in their pasture, and follow Bigfoot through the portal the creatures have come through, along with a government agent and a poacher who’s after all the magic he can accumulate.

Hotshot astronomer Rick Tagler thought terminal brain cancer limited his options—until a celestial cataclysm hurls him and other Outcasts into Illdari, a perilous new universe where survival is just the beginning. Join Rick, his pet turtle Gams, and a spitfire Fae named Gail as they navigate monstrous beasts, mercurial storms, sinister guilds, and rule-breaking overseers. In Illdari, the odds aren't just stacked against you; they'll stomp you into jelly and spread you on toast.

An imperfect hero for an imperfect time. For generations, Riker men have been the best of the best. For the Battleborn that comes with a cost. I spit out the blood in my mouth. I had to give the other guy credit. That was a fine right hook. Every bit as good as my mom used to give me. Of course, the best right hooks were the ones I landed on the other guy rather than the ones the other guy landed on me. My dear departed mother had always taught me it was better to give than receive.

Did you ever wake up wondering where you were…and perhaps equally important, how you got there? Yeah, me too. The only the thing is, it usually happens when I've been drinking…and I'd been dry for the better part of two years. I'm Commodore Jeremy David Riker…my friends call me JD or just plain “Dog.” I have the dubious honor of running a starship boneyard in the middle of nowhere.

Suddenly on the far side of the Milky Way, Admiral Deborah Allen Riker and her crew find themselves neck-deep in trouble...again! It turns out the galaxy is a very dangerous place. Threats come in all shapes and sizes. For Admiral Dare, peace and protecting the innocent is the price of being human. It is a precious commodity that must be paid for with the blood and tears of those willing and able to fight for it.

Newly reinstated Captain Deborah Allen Riker (a.k.a. Admiral Dare) has been called many things over the years. Risk-averse is not one of them. When she and her badly crippled starship found themselves lost in the middle of an ocean of uncharted stars, with the fate of the galaxy on the line, facing enemies from the past, present, and future.... She did what any Riker would do....She attacked.

I watched as the alien weapon’s neutronium hull fractured and then exploded. The antimatter-driven explosion engulfed the remaining three ships. Even neutronium is not impervious to antimatter. In one final act of love, my wife had saved us. A piece of my heart died that day in the Paradise system. In a way, the wound never healed. I learned to live with it. I raised our son as best I could. I carried out the mission. But I missed the woman who represented everything good in my life.

It’s odd the way some things work out. You expect to wake up dead, and instead, you wake up to the beautiful face of your wife. I was confused. I had died...or at least I sure as heck thought I had. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I’ve been alive for a number of years now and to be honest...I’m quite fond of it. I just didn’t understand "how" I was alive. My name is Fleet Admiral Jeremy Riker...but my friends call me Dog. This is the rest of my story.

Three centuries after the Calming, the System is alive, but it’s not well. All that remains of the once-omnipotent AI are the book it left behind, and the itinerant professors charged with keeping its wisdom.

For generations, a sentient AI watched over the world, solving all of humanity’s problems. It was an era of objectivity, social equality, and ecological recovery. It should have been a golden age. Now, three strangers are on a pilgrimage through the arid, lonely sagelands and underpopulated cities of the Systemic era to the seemingly innocuous town of Prower. There, they'll uncover the secrets that lay buried beneath the town and learn the truth about their half-remembered pasts. In the end, they'll choose between their sanity or solving humanity’s final, most intractable problem.

Pharmacology professor Miklos Rosen (now Michael Ross) retires from the world of academia in 1970 and opens a community pharmacy in a peaceful upstate New York town. He puts the horrific tragedies of his past behind him and finds serenity in his new life. That is, until he recognizes a customer as former Nazi SS officer Hans Stern....

It had been ten years since Roy came to New Terra. At the conclusion of the great interstellar war against the Serpent People, Roy went from being an ace fighter pilot to a simple farmer, married to his beloved wife Katreena and father to their three beautiful children. He had discovered a happiness that he had long given up on having again in his lifetime. However, their lives were overshadowed by a dark prophesy.

Wars with aliens make for strange bedfellows. Five hundred years ago I died. In most cases that would have been the end of it. The thing is, I didn't stay dead. Well, actually I did, but more to the point my mind woke up in brand spanking new, state-of-the-art cloned body custom built by the Imperium to fight the B'dar. This is my story. This is the future history of me.