When Manchester Yards donates a new training vessel to the Merchant Officer Academy at Port Newmar, Alys Giggone recalls the Chernyakova. She wants Ishmael Wang and his crew to take a crew of cadets into the Deep Dark. They have to sort out the crews of two ships, figure out what lessons they need to teach, and who will get those lessons. Once they agree, the trouble starts.

An old friend. A new course. A deadly ship with a secret cargo. Ishmael Wang returns to Port Newmar, but ghosts from his past have followed him. His old shipmate, Phillip Carstairs, offers him the opportunity to track down the man who killed his lover. The catch? He must take command of the Chernyakova, a ship that still stinks of death and haunts Ishmael's nightmares. Together Phillip and Ismael begin a journey into unknown reaches of the Deep Dark to bring back the man who killed Greta.

Academy graduate Natalya Regyri stood first in line for her pick of engineering officer jobs, until, at the graduation party, a classmate turned up dead. Now, betrayed by her friends and framed for murder, she must flee beyond the reach of the Confederation...and any semblance of civilized society. With a damaged second-hand ship and TIC interceptors dogging her step, she nets a smuggling contract that might just get her back on her feet and in control of her destiny. But only if she's willing to make an ore run back to the place she's wanted for murder.

When Edgar Vagrant down checks Verkol Kondur’s mining barge, Kondur gets swept up in station politics in spite of his best efforts to avoid them. When Edgar pushes his elder son, Malachai, into working on the station’s freighter, Malachai decides to take matters into his own hands. With Malachai gone, his brother Zachary gets to pick up the pieces of a management structure that he had no hand in making, no authority to control, and no wish to continue.

In a universe run by corporations, where profit matters more than life, how can an orphan with no skills, no money, and no prospects survive? When Ishmael Wang's mother dies in a senseless accident, he's given a choice: leave the planet on his own, or the company will remove him. To avoid deportation Ishmael finds work as a mess deck attendant on an interstellar freighter.

After 20 winters on the road, Tanyth Fairport makes one last pilgrimage in her quest to learn all she can about the herbs and medicinal plants of Korlay before settling down to write her magnum opus. Her journey is interrupted when she decides to help a small village and learns that much of what she knows of the world may not be quite as it seems.

Centuries in the past, mankind fought a seemingly unbeatable adversary from sector to sector across the Spiral Arm until the war ground to a standstill and the Enemy withdrew. Believing that they had won, the citizens of the galaxy rebuilt. The Inner Worlds, which had escaped the worst of the war's ravages, became even more insular, while the Rim worlds adopted a free and easy way with law and order. Now, hundreds of years after their withdrawal, the Enemy is back - and this time they'll be satisfied with nothing less than the extinction of the galaxy.

For five grand a month and a million-dollar chaser, Roger Mulligan didn't care how crazy the old geezer was. All he had to do was keep Joseph Perry Shackleford alive and keep him from squandering the estate for a year. But they didn't tell him about the pixies.

Bob thought he was doing fine on his own. Then the love of his life fell out of the sky. Can he get her back in the air with auto parts and a cutting torch? If he does, will she ever come back? Nikki took a job before she saw the equipment. Can she keep her passengers alive on a strange planet? Are the natives friendly?

In a single ruthless blow, Commander Lorraine Adamant’s favorite uncle murders everyone ahead of him in the succession for the Star Kingdom of Adamant. Only luck and the paranoia of her bodyguard, Vigo Jarret, saves Lorraine’s life. On the run in a single starship Lorraine should never have commanded, with a crew she can not trust, she swiftly learns her uncle’s hounds are hot on her heels. She must gather every skill, every trick, she has ever learned if she is to survive—and pray the uncle who taught her those tricks is a step behind.

Get ready to experience two more origin stories in the Backyard Starship universe.

On his way to his betrothal, young Lord Penric comes upon a riding accident with an elderly lady on the ground, her maidservant and guardsmen distraught. As he approaches to help, he discovers that the lady is a Temple divine, servant to the five gods of this world. Her avowed god is the Bastard, "master of all disasters out of season", and with her dying breath she bequeaths her mysterious powers to Penric.

Damien Montgomery is as much a nobody as a Mage of the star-spanning Protectorate of Mars can be. Trained as a Jump Mage, one of the elite who teleport ships across interstellar space, he lacks the connections to find a ship that will take him. Until pirates and politics strand Captain David White of the jump freighter Blue Jayin his home system. The two men's matching needs birth a choice and a partnership that will take them from high-end orbitals to prisons to alien graveyards in forgotten star systems.

New ER doctor Alexi Sur always intended to join an aid agency. She'd just expected to work among humans. When the Pax Galactica Corps becomes her only option (don't ask—the debts aren't hers, but the family is, much to her regret), Alexi finds herself traveling the galaxy and learning alien physiology and culture, all while becoming a reality TV star. Being pursued by camera drones and starring in her very own Welcome-to-the-Universe documentary was never on Alexi's to-do list.

When you are old enough to finally become an Earth Mars citizen, everything should be perfect. Right? Not for Liam Hoffen. He's stuck on a mining asteroid called Colony 40, helping his father work a claim that is never going to pay out. His best friend, Nick James is set for life in James' Rental business and Liam just discovered that the girl he's known forever thinks he's pretty great and now she's leaving for the Mars Naval Academy.

When Manchester Yards donates a new training vessel to the Merchant Officer Academy at Port Newmar, Alys Giggone recalls the Chernyakova. She wants Ishmael Wang and his crew to take a crew of cadets into the Deep Dark. They have to sort out the crews of two ships, figure out what lessons they need to teach, and who will get those lessons. Once they agree, the trouble starts.

When Edgar Vagrant down checks Verkol Kondur’s mining barge, Kondur gets swept up in station politics in spite of his best efforts to avoid them. When Edgar pushes his elder son, Malachai, into working on the station’s freighter, Malachai decides to take matters into his own hands. With Malachai gone, his brother Zachary gets to pick up the pieces of a management structure that he had no hand in making, no authority to control, and no wish to continue.

An old friend. A new course. A deadly ship with a secret cargo. Ishmael Wang returns to Port Newmar, but ghosts from his past have followed him. His old shipmate, Phillip Carstairs, offers him the opportunity to track down the man who killed his lover. The catch? He must take command of the Chernyakova, a ship that still stinks of death and haunts Ishmael's nightmares. Together Phillip and Ismael begin a journey into unknown reaches of the Deep Dark to bring back the man who killed Greta.

Otto is Richard Krugg's only son and heir to the Shaman's gift. Otto doesn't want it. He wants to be a fisherman. When company policies force unwelcome changes onto his life and threaten even the security of the village, Otto discovers that being a shaman isn't optional. Jimmy Pirano is caught between the devil and the deep green sea when new production quotas are handed down from corporate headquarters. Locked into a century of existing practice, Jimmy is forced to find new ways to fish....

Academy graduate Natalya Regyri stood first in line for her pick of engineering officer jobs, until, at the graduation party, a classmate turned up dead. Now, betrayed by her friends and framed for murder, she must flee beyond the reach of the Confederation...and any semblance of civilized society. With a damaged second-hand ship and TIC interceptors dogging her step, she nets a smuggling contract that might just get her back on her feet and in control of her destiny. But only if she's willing to make an ore run back to the place she's wanted for murder.