Showing results by author "Mike Shepherd" in All Categories

While summoned to the Imperial Iteeche Court to be humanity’s Emissary, it turns out that what the Iteeche really want is a fighting admiral! You see, they’ve got this huge civil war going, and the Imperial side isn’t doing so well. Kris now has command of the entire Imperial Combined Fleet. Sort of. The Iteeche Empire has a 10,000-year-long history. There is nothing that won’t say, “We’ve always done it that way,” pointing to a track record lasting for thousands of years. Even when Kris reminds them they’re losing, many have a hard time changing.

Grand Admiral Kris Longknife is rampaging across the stars, kicking butt and taking planets away from the Iteeche rebels. She asks her grandparents, Gramma and Grampa Trouble, to came out to spend time with Kris' kids while she is gone. Meanwhile, back on the Iteeche Imperial Capitol planet, intrigue and power plays continue. Within 50 kilometers of the Imperial Palace are a dozen clan factions that dream of seizing the purple from the hand of the young emperor.

Born into a family of wealth and political power, Kris Longknife turned her back on high society and followed a different family tradition by joining the Marines. But now she finds herself relieved of duty. She's gotten in the way of someone's agenda - to bring down her father, the Prime Minister of Wardhaven.

Lieutenant Commander Kris Longknife leads a reconnaissance mission of the vast uncharted regions of space. No one, least of all Kris, expects to find a hostile alien starship. Now, she must determine the extent of the alien threat - and whether to start an interstellar war.

Despite her role as a fleet admiral and protector of a planetary system, Kris is still beholden to her great-grandfather King Raymond's commands. She has been personally selected for a mission that will, should she succeed, save millions of lives. The Peterwald Empire is in the midst of civil war. On one side is the tyrannical empress; on the other is the last person Kris ever wants to see again: Grand Duchess Vicky Peterwald. Due to their shared history, the emperor believes Kris can mediate between the factions and bring about peace.

Kris Longknife has been assigned to The Wasp, the best warship beyond the Rim of Human Space. But while hunting for pirates, Kris stumbles upon something. It's a plan to kill one of the members of the aristocratic Peterwald family - and the would-be killers are setting her up as the assassin.

The aliens attacking the planetary system of Alwa are an enemy unlike any Admiral Kris Longknife has ever encountered before. She doesn't know who they are, only that they worship a being known as the Enlightened One and are unafraid to sacrifice themselves against her fleet. But Kris faces more than just the fanatical behavior of an alien armada. A saboteur has infiltrated the military's medical facility and unleashed an epidemic that has spread throughout the fleet without warning.

Vice Admiral Kris Longknife’s honeymoon gets cancelled when she hears that the space raider’s home world may have been discovered. Finding where the raiders came from could be the key to saving humanity. If only uncovering their secrets was that easy. As Kris returns home, she ends up tangling with a mutinous crew determined to take off on their own.

Kris Longknife has discovered that this desk job is not at all what she expected. Being desk bound hasn't even decreased the number of assassination attempts! Then Kris gets home to find her two kids playing with an Iteeche. Ron has come back to human space with a request. Should Kris take it? Can she finally get some straight answers for her Grampa Ray, King Raymond to most? Does she risk taking the kids into a situation with a whole lot of unanswered questions?

Kris Longknife is back in the good graces of the brass - and to demonstrate that, they've promoted her to Admiral. Now her mission is to find the home base of the space pirates who are plaguing the fringes of the galaxy. But no mission is ever simple when your name is Longknife. And this time the complications range from the military to the personal, as Kris finds herself - reluctantly - having to make some command decisions about her future....

Kris Longknife encounters some peaceful aliens who have come to warn humanity of an unidentifiable force that is roaming the galaxy, obliterating everything in its path - a path now leading directly toward the human worlds.

Lieutenant Commander Kris Longknife has precise orders: seek out, engage, and destroy pirates, slavers, and drug lords operating beyond the rim of human space - without interfering in Peterwald family affairs. But when slavers kidnap a 12-year-old girl, Kris's mission becomes personal. And if destroying the pirate compound flattens some Peterwald interests - well, to hell with politics.

Grand Admiral, Her Royal Highness Kris Longknife, commander of the Iteeche Imperial Combined Fleets has the enemy on the run. Literally. The last time she entered a rebel system, every disloyal ship picked up its skirts and ran. So why has she been ordered, as in requested and required, to make a formal report to the Emperor? Ron the Iteeche and his two young Iteeche Counselors have little to say on the subject except that some Iteeche think Kris is winning too much, too fast.

Kris Longknife had no choice about growing up rich and pampered. When she did have a choice, she joined the Marines. But now, a friend needs help halfway across the galaxy - and with a military heritage coursing through her blood, it's time for Kris Longknife to be a hero.

Kris Longknife is a daughter of privilege, born to money and power. Her father is the prime minister of her home planet, her mother the consummate politician's wife. She's been raised only to be beautiful and marry well. But the heritage of the military Longknifes courses through Kris' blood - and, against her parents' objections, she enlists in the Marines.

Asteroid miner Mary Rodrigo and freighter owner Mattim Abeeb are green draftees of the Society of Humanity, forced to fight for Earth - a planet they’ve never even seen. Major Ray Longknife and his lover, Senior Pilot Rita Nuu, are career soldiers, invested with the cause of the Unity Party - and its ambitious new president. These four soldiers on opposing sides of the battle are about to discover the true nature of this terrible war: a quest for profit - from the high command of both sides. What they will risk is nothing less than their lives. For although truth may be the first casualty of war, it’s not going to be the last….

The war is over. Hurray! Half the fleet is back in mothballs. But out on the rim of human space, ships are disappearing. Some are merchant ships going about their business. Others are exploration ships on deep space probes. What's happening to them? Captain Rita Nuu Longknife is ready to take the heavy cruiser Exeter to space and see what's out there. She may have a nursery next to the captain's cabin and a two-month-old baby on her hip, but she's taking a warship out there, and nobody better get in her way.

Kris Longknife is back - and ready for battle. Kris has been given her first independent command in the very remote system of Chance, an assignment that's as much exile as promotion. But Kris isn't on the job long when she captures pirates hiding the location of an uncharted and unpopulated planet of miraculous technology.

The foolish Iteeche clans that hauled Grand Admiral Kris Longknife back to the Iteeche Capital and interrupted her campaign against the rebels, are dead. Very dead. Their clans are disgraced and their palaces in ruin. However, while Kris was handling that noise, the rebels took back one of the planets she had recently captured, Arteccia, and are planning to take more. Now it's time once more again for Kris to kick butts and take names. However, life is never easy for a Human in the Iteeche Empire.

Admiral Kris Longknife should have known the job offer was too good. Still, she jumped at the chance to be the first human emissary to the Iteeche Empire. Only when she got there, and met the Emperor, a teenage kid swamped by his throne, did Kris find out that there was a little civil war going on in the Iteeche Empire. The loyal forces were losing, and they needed the best fighting admiral they could get. So they got Kris Longknife.