NEW RELEASE!
The world has descended into chaos but it isn't the undead that are the worst part. Panic, broken supply lines, disrupted communications, terrorized refugees, the friction and fog of war all combine to make hell on Earth.
The battered men and women of America's storied First Infantry Division, based out of Fort Riley Kansas, are ordered to give up their fights in the cities and retreat towards to the National Redoubt in the Northwest. With ammunition, food and fuel running low and a soul searing death only a bite away, they start a fighting retreat across the plains. In the way are armed gangs, undead hordes, incompetent leadership and a landscape irrevocably changed.
This is the follow up to Shane Gries' breakthrough best selling "The Thin Dead Line" and is set in the world of J.F. Holmes' "Irregular Scout Team One".
When society crumbles under the onslaught of civil war, the losing side has only three choices: run, hide, or die. The Imperial family chose to run.
Their tattered fleet of warships limps its way across the galaxy, seeking a near-mythical refuge, a world not recorded on any star chart. Unfortunately, this lost world turns out to have its own thriving pocket of humanity. And while they lack spacefaring technology, the locals aren't willing to share.
An officer of the battle-worn fleet and a young soldier from this forgotten world lead their respective people in a struggle that threatens to consume them all. A conflict stoked by those in the blind pursuit of power and others who desperately seek to hold onto it.
Oasis is the first volume of Shane Gries' epic space opera series, now in an updated and expanded edition.
Wars end, enemies are defeated and territories are conquered and the combatants have to return to a life changed. America and the rest of humanity have fallen to the Fae, ancient mortal enemies of mankind. After building their strength for two thousand years, the Elves have claimed their vengeance and now rule Earth with an iron fist and dragon fire. Down but not out, a human resistance is building, but first daily life needs to be lived.
An anthology of stories exploring life during the Occupation in the best-selling Fae Wars universe.
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J.F. Holmes, Cedar Sanderson, Alex Shaw, Michael Craig, John Olsen, Kyle Hannah, James Copely, Brian Gifford
The Professor has problems, and not just what decades of soldiering did to his back and his knees. His boss just died, leaving him as CEO of the extremely discreet intelligence contractor Athenaeum, Incorporated. His old buddy the Operations Director is a highly skilled Army Ranger veteran but his finance chief is slightly unhinged and spends her money on highly inappropriate work outfits. The surviving old men on the Board of Directors are stuck in the 1970s. Running Athenaeum out of an old Cold War bunker and keeping their roster of experts together is expensive, but the government contracts are drying up or going to bigger, flashier corporate players.
Then an intercepted phone call puts them on the trail of a drug cartel’s shipping container of “maybe” a billion dollars in cash, so its command decision time.
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Door Number One, ignore it. But… a billion dollars with a capital B.
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Door Number Two, tell the Feds. But that might bring official notice to the shady intelligence gathering they have been paying Athenaeum for all these years.
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Or open Door Number Three, which might get them all killed, or worse.
THe THIN DEAD LINE
On a hot July day on the plains of Kansas a US Army mechanized infantry company from the 1st Infantry Division gets a very vague warning order and the young troopers saddle up on their steel beasts to go try to control "civil unrest", whatever that means. Police in a small town start firing on people in self defense, people who seem to have gone violently insane. A prisoner at Fort Leavenworth out on work detail sees a strange murder and is forced to make a run for it. As the situation starts to descend into chaos, confused orders are given, old sins are forgiven in exchange for needed help and the Bradleys and Abrams soldiers fight a desperate battle using every weapon on hand. Chaos reigns in the heartland of America, spreading ever outward.
The Apocalypse written as only a veteran infantryman can, The Thin Dead Line is set as a companion series to the best selling Irregular Scout Team One by J.F. Holmes.
irregular scout team one
In July of 2016 a plague swept the world, and the civilization collapsed and fell. For a lone National Guard sergeant, a veteran of the wars overseas who had settled down to a new life, the nightmare began on a hot summer evening at the barricades. Orders and chaos, gunfire and being overrun, his unit dwindles away in the face of the infected.
Months later, living in the ruins, the thud of helicopter rotors followed by a crash and the rescue of a downed pilot leads Nick Agostine back into the arms of the US military. From his experience comes the idea of teams, military and civilians experienced in dealing with the undead and barbarism of the wilds. The first Irregular Scout Team leads the way for Task Force Liberty to advance down the Mohawk Valley in Upstate NY, making contact with survivors and clearing out the infected with stealth and firepower.
A year has passed since the plague destroyed most of civilization around the world and the U.S. military is slowly starting to move out into a devastated country. From their bastion in the Pacific Northwest mechanized task forces take the fight for America onto the offensive. In front of the military, deep into the wild ruins, go the Irregular Scout Teams. A mix of hardened military veterans and experienced civilians who can operate for long periods of time on their own. Checking the road, rail, and water transportation infrastructure, identifying groups of survivors for reinforcement or evacuation, running rather than fighting. The Teams have all the might of their task forces’ firepower on call but it’s better to be unheard by the infected and unseen by the lawless.
This isn’t a book about the Apocalypse. It’s a book about the men and women of Irregular Scout Team One and how they lay their lives on the line for each other in the face of incredible danger. A book about how a bad decision or just plain bad luck can put yourself and the ones you love at risk. In the end, though, it's a book about ... Hope.
FAllen empire
What’s a soldier to do when the war is over? When he’s only known conflict his whole life? Since time immemorial the solution has been to find another war, this time for pay. Whoever has the credits and wins the high bid gets the experienced fighter. Sometimes, though, the money isn't enough to cover the price. In the tradition of Hammer's Slammers and Falkenberg's Legion, a new universe of mercenaries and warfare takes place in the ruins of an alien empire.
The fighting is done for now and the alien Grausians who ruled over the Terran worlds have withdrawn from known space after a devastating civil war. In their wake the formerly subject races have fought themselves to a standstill and a negotiated armistice, leaving tens of thousands of veterans out of work and hundreds of planets in the lawless DMZ.
The Grausian Interstellar Empire has fallen and the ruins are for the taking. In the Twenty Seventh Century that means whoever can field the best military, and on the DMZ worlds, that means Private Military Contractors.
Overrun: (J.F. Holmes) A unit of the Irish Brigade fights for it's life after the end of a contract
Most Wanted: (J.F. Holmes) Section Six of the Terran Union Bureau of Investigation chases down a war criminal
Slamming: (J.F. Holmes) A new enlistee is introduced to the excitement and horrors of mechanized warfare
Milk Run: (Casey Moores) A Search and Rescue unit learns the difference between patriotism and profit
The Empresses Price: (Armondo Borboa) When the trumpets fade the Terran Military becomes a useless afterthoguht to their masters.
When the Empire rises, it's glory and fame for the soldier, but when it falls and you're on the long end of a failing supply chain, you have to wonder what all the dying is for. Terran Union Marine Dave Hernandez fights in the last bitter actions of the Succession Wars, living in the mud and blood as incoming fire decimates his squad, the men he called brothers.
After the inevitable drawdown he finds himself as the crewman of a tramp freighter, running between the worlds of the Demilitarized Zone. The DMZ is a place where not a lot of questions are asked and maybe a veteran can find some peace among the stars. Sure, the ship is war surplus, but so is Hernandez. The fact that there's a group of Private Military Contractors protecting the ship means little to him until Illyrian pirates attack and board the vessel, overwhelming the security detail and forcing the Former Marine to bring back old skills that hadn't died as much as he had thought.
The war amid the stars is over and Captain Fremont McMannus is moving on to a staff job. His entire Microgravity Strike Team is going to be disbanded, struck from the rolls of the Terran Marine Corps. No more daring raids on Charee orbital stations or assaulting Grausian battleships. Never again to risk the combat spacer's fate worse than getting spitted on a Legionaries' vibrosword, drifting through the void while your air ran out and silent violence danced around you. Then again, a staff job and a transfer over to Fleet HQ in peacetime might also be also worse than death.
His rescue comes in the form of note from an old commanding officer, Colonel Thomas Meagher. who has started his own mercenary company, operating in the Peace Treaty Demilitarized Zone. Dozens of worlds left outside the borders of the remnant political units of the Old Empire, with gold. violence and enemies to spare. Reaching out to the men and women he led in combat a just a few short months ago and who will soon be out on the unemployment line, Free puts the 76th MIST out for hire.
FAE WARS
In an alternate 2015, a US Army Special Forces Team, part of the legendary black ops unit "Delta", is in midtown Manhattan to take out a Chinese spy and his handlers, sending a message short of outright conflict. All goes smoothly until they find themselves in a full blown shooting war through the canyons of the City. Portals from another world have opened in Central Park, making a way for figures out of historical nightmare to invade. The Fae, creatures banished from Earth thousands of years ago and now only part of our legends, have returned with Dragon fire, spell and sword to conquer and take revenge.
The first volume of The Fae Wars covers Team Three, G squadron, Special Forces Detachment (Delta) as they fight their way off Manhattan and then join the defense of the refugees as the Fae assault the bridges. The fabled 69th Infantry puts up an epic fight against superior weaponry and then the war descends into the asymmetric hell that the Delta Operators know so well. Along the way they find new allies and old powers that come to their aid.
For the first time in two hundred years an enemy has stepped foot on American soil and war has come to our cities. The US military is rocked back on its heels and driven into a fighting retreat as each defense line falls. The foe is unstoppable and ... Fae. Creatures from a legendary past who have come to reclaim the Earth in the name of magic and revenge.
In the hills of Pennsylvania a ragtag, devastated army prepares to make a last stand against dragon fire capable of melting an Abrams tank and wizardry that stops fifth generation fighter jets in mid-air. Inevitably it comes down to shining steel verses human will, and Sergeant Oliva Acevedo transforms from a hospital clerk to a hardened fighter.
When the Fae Invasion hammers the West Coast, Captain James Powers and his California Army National Guard artillery battery is caught on its way home from Annual Training. In a running battle the unit is smashed by combat with orcs and elves, leaving their commander struggling to keep his people together and alive. Along the way a dying priest with a strange ability to see the future manipulates people and events to bring Captain Powers to his true calling as a Seer.
As they run and fight, the humans gain new allies, Fea tinkerers who love all things mechanical and hate the elves. With their help they begin to take the war to the enemy in a brutal mayhem of ambush and assassination.
Wars end, enemies are defeated and territories are conquered and the combatants have to return to a life changed. America and the rest of humanity have fallen to the Fae, ancient mortal enemies of mankind. After building their strength for two thousand years, the Elves have claimed their vengeance and now rule Earth with an iron fist and dragon fire. Down but not out, a human resistance is building, but first daily life needs to be lived.
An anthology of stories exploring life during the Occupation in the best-selling Fae Wars universe.
