In this collection of short stories, New York Times bestselling author Jack Campbell explores what kinds of problems mankind might face as our horizons expand.
“Lady Be Good:” The Lady Be Good is an old ship, running obscure routes with her loyal first officer Kilcannon and reclusive captain. When Kilcannon decides to rescue the survivors of an attack on a Vestral Company ship, a mysterious new passenger thanks him by asking difficult questions about the Lady, with unexpected answers.
In “Kyrie Eleison,” the Verio shipwrecked centuries ago on an out-of-the-way planet, and the descendants of the ship’s survivors have gotten along as well as they can by following the orders that were passed on to them. But when the Bellegrange arrives on a rescue mission, her captain will have to reckon with the unexpected social order on the planet.
In “Do No Harm,” a ship is so technologically advanced that it can repair itself-but turning over the keys might not be the best idea. And in “Down the Rabbit Hole,” a series of failed attempts at faster-than-light travel leads to a novel approach: sending an untested Naval captain out in a space ship to see if he can figure out what’s gone wrong.

New York Times bestselling author Jack Campbell takes listeners on an incredible journey through time in this collection of seven stories.
The centerpiece of Borrowed Time is “Betty Knox and Dictionary Jones in the Mystery of the Missing Teenage Anachronisms.” When you’ve traveled through time and are stuck in the body of your fifteen-year-old self, it isn’t the best time to have some other time travelers looking to kill you. Especially when the person who’s supposed to be keeping an eye out for the bad guys is stuck in his own fifteen-year-old body.
In four interlinked short stories, temporal interventionists Tom and Pam meet cute, then work together to solve some of history’s greatest mysteries. And in “Joan,” Kate is a time-traveling researcher who’s gotten a little too close to Joan of Arc both in time and emotionally. With no distance, scientific or otherwise, what will happen when she has a chance to rescue Joan from being burnt at the stake?
Our journey through time concludes with “Crow’s Feat,” when a skeptical writer goes back to Elizabethan England to discover the true author of Shakespeare’s plays.

Admiral John “Black Jack” Geary may have saved the Alliance only to destroy it, in this thrilling and eagerly awaited continuation of the New York Times bestselling series.

Geary believed in the Alliance. Even when he uncovered overwhelming evidence that the highest echelons of the government and fleet command were involved in secret programs and prison camps, he believed it was worth saving. And that his duty was to see that justice was served even though some factions feared that revealing the truth would cause the Alliance to crumble.

But after narrowly surviving two assassination attempts when he brings evidence of the misdeeds to the capital star system, Geary realizes that some have decided the easiest way to make the Alliance’s problems go away is to get rid of him. He finds himself ordered to undertake a perilous new mission outside of the reaches of human-occupied space while the Senate clashes over the evidence.

Geary’s warships must escort a diplomatic and scientific mission across the dangerous, disintegrating remnants of the Syndicate Worlds empire. But even if he can make it to Midway Star System, the gateway to alien-controlled space, Geary will face former Syndicate officials who have rebelled and regard the Alliance with deep suspicion. And that will be the easy part. . . .

The Alliance has been fighting a losing battle against the Syndicate Worlds for over a century. Now, Captain John “Black Jack” Geary, who returned to the fleet after a hundred-year suspended animation, must keep the Alliance one step ahead of its merciless foe …

After a series of deadly engagements, the Alliance fleet is severely damaged and its arsenal is running low. Forced to halt in the Baldur Star System to raid the Syndic mines for raw materials, Geary is anxious to get moving again. But what
should the fleet’s next move be? The Syndics are starting to catch on to Geary’s tactics, and as the Alliance ships jump from system to system, it’s getting harder to keep one step ahead.

What’s more, Geary has started to piece fragments of intelligence together into a highly disturbing picture: The Syndics have been keeping the existence of another potential player in the war a secret?and this unknown power may have the means to annihilate the human race …

The Alliance has been fighting the Syndics for a century–and losing badly. Now its fleet is crippled and stranded in enemy territory. Their only hope is a man who’s emerged from a century-long hibernation to find he has been heroically idealized beyond belief …

Captain John “Black Jack” Geary’s legendary exploits are known to every schoolchild. Revered for his heroic “last stand” in the early days of the war, he was presumed dead. But a century later, Geary miraculously returns from survival
hibernation and reluctantly takes command of the Alliance fleet as it faces annihilation by the Syndics.

Appalled by the hero-worship around him, Geary is nevertheless a man who will do his duty. And he knows that bringing the stolen Syndic hypernet key safely home is the Alliance’s one chance to win the war. But to do that, Geary will have
to live up to the impossibly heroic “Black Jack” legend …

Outnumbered by the superior forces and firepower of the Syndicate Worlds, the Alliance fleet continues its dangerous retreat across the enemy star system. Led by the legendary Captain John “Black Jack” Geary, who returned to the fleet
after a hundred-year suspended animation, the Alliance is desperately trying to return home with its captured prize: the key to the Syndic hypernet, and the key to victory …

Geary is convinced that the Syndics are planning to ambush the fleet and finish it off once and for all. Realizing the fleet’s best (and only) chance is to do the unexpected, Geary takes the offensive and orders the fleet to the Sancere System.
There, a multitude of possible routes home give the Alliance fleet a better chance of avoiding their pursuers–and an attack on the Sancere shipbuilding facilities could decimate the Syndic war effort.

Weary from endless combat, the officers and crew of the Alliance fleet can’t see the sense in charging deeper into enemy territory–prompting a mutiny that divides them and leaves Geary with higher odds against him than ever before …

The stellar spin-off to the New York Times bestselling The Lost Fleet series continues as the Syndicate’s civil war threatens to spread even farther into the final frontier …

President Gwen Iceni and General Artur Drakon have successfully liberated the Midway Star System–but the dictatorial former rulers of the Syndicate Worlds won’t surrender the region without a fight.

Outnumbered and led by junior officers hastily promoted in the wake of the uprising, Midway’s warships are no match for the fleet massing and preparing to strike. But the Syndicate isn’t the only threat facing Iceni and Drakon. Another
former CEO has taken control of the Ulindi Star System, the first calculated move toward establishing his own little empire.

With Drakon’s ground forces dispatched to Ulindi, Midway erupts in violence as Syndicate agents and other, unknown enemies stoke a renewed revolt against Iceni’s power–leaving both her and Drakon vulnerable to trusted officers just waiting for an opportune moment to betray them …

Admiral John “Black Jack” Geary fears the greatest threat to humanity may be itself in this gripping continuation of the New York Times bestselling series.
As far from explored space as any human has ever been, Geary and the Alliance fleet are on their own, protecting a diplomatic mission in territory belonging to an alien species with still-unknown motives.
His already complex and dangerous mission is further imperiled by deadly challenges from other human factions seeking to harm or exploit the aliens. When another alien species whose technology is far more advanced than humanity’s arrives, the stakes are raised to the highest possible level.
Only the most serious danger comes from an unexpected source.
When presented with orders to carry out actions he believes not only are mistaken but would be contrary to the ideals of the Alliance, Geary has to finally decide whether he must invoke the power that his long-revered name holds, all the while knowing that this might endanger his entire fleet, tear apart the Alliance, and destroy everything he has fought for.

Thawed out after a century of cryogenic sleep, Captain John “Black Jack” Geary has led the Alliance fleet through Syndicate Worlds space, thwarting the enemy at every turn–even within his own ranks–during the long journey home.

Alliance prisoners of war are being held at a labor camp in the Heradao Star System, which also happens to be the location of the majority of the surviving Syndic warships. Determined not to leave any of his people behind, Black Jack
Geary orders the fleet to strike hard and fast to rescue the POWs with minimal Alliance losses.

The raid is successful, but victory is short-lived. Geary discovers that the Syndics plan to ambush the fleet with their powerful reserve flotilla in an attempt to annihilate it once and for all–but he doesn’t know where the enemy is located.

And as Geary has the fleet jump from one star system to the next, hoping to avoid the inevitable confrontation, saboteurs contribute to the chaos …

Admiral John “Black Jack” Geary must battle dangers both within and without the Alliance, in this exciting continuation of the New York Times bestselling series.

Geary knows that some political factions in the Alliance were just trying to get rid of him when he was assigned to escort a diplomatic and scientific mission to the far reaches of humanity’s expansion into the galaxy … and
beyond. But he views his mission as both a duty and an opportunity to make things better wherever he can. And when a crippled Rift Federation ship tumbles out of jump space, Geary leaps into action. But the survivors’ story isn’t completely adding up.

As Geary investigates, he soon finds himself fending off spies and assassins while leading the fleet as it fights its way across space controlled by the mysterious and hostile aliens whom humans call enigmas. Challenges
arrive at every turn, including an unknown alien species that invites the fleet to visit one of their star systems. With little information to go on, Geary must weigh the benefits of potential new allies against the
possibility of a trap. The fate of the fleet–and perhaps even the future of humanity–will depend on him making the right decision.

If he can stay alive long enough to do that.

The New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Fleet series returns to the epic space saga of a rebellion against a totalitarian regime, and the determination of two people to create a better future in the farthest reaches of the colonized galaxy …

The Syndicate Worlds continues to splinter as more star systems pledge allegiance to President Gwen Iceni’s and General Artur Drakon’s new government at Midway. But the rebels fleeing the toxic legacy of Syndicate rule have difficulty trusting one another and believing their new leaders’ promises of freedom from tyranny.

Before Iceni and Drakon can put their house in order, they must deal with another threat. An enigma warship has appeared and vanished near a Syndic colony. If the aliens are capable of jumping into other human-occupied star systems, then billions of people could be vulnerable to a hostile invasion fleet anywhere it chooses to strike.

But an even greater liability lies with Iceni and Drakon as a once-trusted adviser turned saboteur plans revenge …

Swords and Saddles is a must-listen collection of three novellas from New York Times bestselling author Jack Campbell.
The Rift: Answering a distress call from a colonized planet, a combat team finds themselves ambushed. They manage to scrabble their way to a remote research facility in the countryside, joining a group of schoolchildren that have holed up with the researchers-three groups united in fear that their lives will last only as long as they can avoid discovery by the aliens that have come to their planet.
Swords and Saddles: When lightning strikes Captain Ulysses Benton and his U.S. Cavalry Fifth Regiment, they recover to find an ancient structure in the desert that they’ve never seen before-and writing in a language none of them recognize. It soon becomes clear that wherever it is they are, it isn’t 1870s Kansas.
Failure to Obey: When Lieutenant Jen Shen saves the day after a terrorist attack on a space station, she gets a medal, but Ivan Sharpe, a fellow officer and Paul’s former master-at-arms, gets a court martial. In a classic court martial scene that rivals the best in American literature, Paul has to work behind the scenes to save Ivan’s military career.

Trapped within the dead city of Marandur, Master Mechanic Mari and Mage Alain must escape both merciless barbarians and the pitiless Imperial Legion. Beyond those dangers lie the mightiest and most unforgiving powers in the world of Dematr: the Great Guilds that rule the world with iron fists.

Mari’s Mechanics Guild and Alain’s Mage Guild have always been enemies, but they are united in wanting to kill their rogue members before Mari can fulfill the ancient prophecy of being the one who will finally overthrow their power. Mari and Alain must risk those dangers because halfway across their world lies a place
where truth has long been hidden. A place that could explain why their world’s history begins abruptly, with no hints of what came before. A place where they might learn how the Mechanics Guild came to control all technology and how the Mages manage to alter reality temporarily. A place that might tell them how to
achieve a task that appears to be impossible.

Never before have a Mage and a Mechanic worked together, and their combined talents offer their only hope. But she and Alain must first survive the deadly and implacable Assassins of Altis.

The first book in a thrilling new epic fantasy saga by Jack Campbell, the New York Times best-selling author of The Lost Fleet series!

For centuries, the two Great Guilds have controlled the world of Dematr. The Mechanics and the Mages have been bitter rivals, agreeing only on the need to keep the world they rule from changing. But now a Storm approaches, one that
could sweep away everything that humans have built. Only one person has any chance of uniting enough of the world behind her to stop the Storm, but the Great Guilds and many others will stop at nothing to defeat her.

Mari is a brilliant young Mechanic, just out of the Guild Halls, where she has spent most of her life learning how to run the steam locomotives and other devices of her Guild. Alain is the youngest Mage ever to learn how to change the world he
sees with the power of his mind. Each has been taught that the works of the other’s Guild are frauds. But when their caravan is destroyed, they begin to discover how much has been kept from them.

As they survive danger after danger, Alain discovers what Mari doesn’t know–that she was long ago prophesized as the only one who can save their world.

When Mari reawakens emotions he had been taught to deny, Alain realizes he must sacrifice everything to save her. Mari, fighting her own feelings, discovers that only together can she and Alain hope to stay alive and overcome the Dragons of Dorcastle.

When Master Mechanic Mari and Mage Alain took down the Dark Mechanics and Dark Mages at Dorcastle, they thought they’d covered their involvement well enough to divert their Guilds’ suspicions. The assassins sent after them by their
Guilds, which had trained them from childhood, indicate otherwise. Armed with the knowledge that their respective Guilds are now trying to kill them, and knowing their strengths are greater together, they reunite.

Rumor has it the key to saving their world from the Guilds’ iron-fisted rule is in the dead city of Marandur. But before they can even attempt to traverse the empty wastelands and avoid the imperial guards surrounding Marandur, they’ll have to
survive the Guilds’ agents, who are determined to capture them at any cost, and by any means necessary.

As the author of the bestselling Lost Fleet series, Jack Campbell’s name is well-known to fans of interstellar heroics. Now Campbell brings his keen eye for military adventure and political intrigue to a tale that is earthbound, but no less wondrous …

In a transformed mid-nineteenth-century America dominated by plantation owners and kept in line by Southern military forces, a mild-mannered academic from Maine, Professor Joshua Chamberlain, stands accused of crimes against the nation. In court alongside him is Abraham Lincoln, whose fiery rhetoric brands him a “threat to the security of the United States of America.” Convicted, Chamberlain is sentenced to forty years hard labor, while Lincoln’s fate is indefinite detention at Fortress Monroe. But Professor Chamberlain then encounters military minds who understand the true ideals upon which the country was founded and who want to foment revolution. To succeed, they need a leader, someone to inspire the people to take up the cause of liberty: Lincoln. All they have to do is flawlessly execute a daring plan to rescue him from the darkest federal prison.

In The Last Full Measure, Campbell delivers a riveting look at an America where war is imminent, and nothing is as it should be.

“The world feels oddly strained, like a line pulled too taut and apt to snap, smashing everything in its path.”

Master Mechanic Mari and Mage Alain have survived every attempt to stop them, but their enemies are determined to kill Mari, the only one who can save her world from a storm of destruction. As armies begin to gather and cities seethe
with tension, Mari, Alain, and their friends must prepare to confront the storm in the place it first appeared: the broken kingdom of Tiae.

The dangers facing them demand perilous raids, tough battles, and more than a little piracy. Beating the Mechanics Guild and the Mage Guild that have controlled the world of Dematr for centuries will require an unprecedented alliance under
Mari’s command of rebellious Mechanics, Mages, and common folk who know that together they can change the world, but separately they will all lose.

A Storm that will wreck a world threatens Dematr. Only Mari, one of the Mechanics who control all technology through their Guild, has a chance to stop it.

She and Mage Alain have survived numerous attempts to kill them and have gained many more followers, but the Storm of chaos, born of centuries of enslavement, grows ever closer.

Mari leads an army now. She and Alain must fight together to bind back the Broken Kingdom and build a force strong enough to defeat the might of the Great Guilds. But the Storm has many Servants who seek to preserve or gain personal power or wealth, or fear the New Day that Mari seeks to bring to the world.

And Mari knows that victory will mean nothing if the precious knowledge brought long ago to their world is destroyed. In order to save it, Alain and Mari will have to pierce through the heart of their enemies’ power and confront once more a place of ancient nightmare.

New York Times bestselling author Jack Campbell’s epic series, The Pillars of Reality, reaches its exciting conclusion.

The Great Guilds, fearing the loss of their control of the world of Dematr, have gathered their power and joined it with the relentless legions of the Empire. The full might of that host will fall upon the fortress city of Dorcastle. If Dorcastle falls,
the revolt led by Master Mechanic Mari and Mage Alain will fail, and their world will soon descend into chaos.

Only Mari, believed to be the daughter of an ancient prophecy, can inspire the people and lead the defense of Dorcastle. The prophecy says she has a chance to win, but it doesn’t say she will survive. Alain will stand by her, both willing to die
for the other, but neither one knows if their sacrifices will mean victory.

As they battle the Imperial legions and see friends fall, Mari and Alain face their greatest challenges. And if they somehow win in the face of impossible odds, neither one can be certain what sort of world that victory will produce.

Deep within Syndicate World space, the Alliance fleet continues its dangerous journey home under the command of Captain John “Black Jack” Geary–revived after a century spent in suspended animation. Geary’s victories over the enemy
have earned him both the respect–and the envy–of his fellow officers …

“Black Jack” Geary has made many risky decisions as commander, but ordering the Alliance fleet back to the Lakota Star System where it had nearly been destroyed by the Syndics has his officers questioning his sanity. It’s a desperate
gamble that may buy Geary just enough time to prepare for the Syndics’ inevitable return–and give the fleet a fighting chance of survival.

But even as he struggles to stay one step ahead of the enemy, Geary must face conspirators within his own fleet–an unknown number of officers who want a change of command. And Geary knows that his fleet must stand together or the Syndic forces will tear them apart …

Captain John “Black Jack” Geary has come home after a century of cryogenic sleep to find the war between the Alliance and the Syndicate Worlds still raging.

A legendary hero, he is promoted to fleet admiral–even though the ruling council fears he may stage a military coup.

Geary has never fought for the sake of glory. His new rank means only that he has the authority to negotiate with the Syndics, who have suffered tremendous losses and may finally be willing to end the war. With grim determination, Geary leads
the fleet back out into Syndic space.

This seasoned commander knows surrender never comes easy. But even as he steels himself to confront the immediate enemy, he is all too aware that a greater alien threat lurks on the far side of Syndic-occupied space …