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TO SAVE THE GALAXY, A DEAD HERO MUST RISE AGAIN! NEWLY REVISED AND EXPANDED NOVEL SET IN THE TRAVELLER UNIVERSE.

Jonathan Bland is a Decider, empowered by the Emperor himself to deal with the inevitable crises of an empire. In the service of the Empire, he has killed more people than anyone in the history of Humanity, to save a hundred times as many. He died centuries ago, but they reactivate his recorded personality whenever a new threat appears. When the crisis is over, they expect he will meekly return to oblivion.

He has other ideas.

The chronicle of Bland reveals secrets of the history of the star-spanning Third Imperium and spans 400 years from early Imperium (about year 300) through the mid-post Civil War period (about year 700) touching known and unknown events you may have encountered in your own reading of the Imperium: everyday events, political intrigue, deadly dangers, Arbellatra, Capital, Encyclopediopolis, the Karand's Palace, and a Tigress-class Dreadnought.

If you know the Traveller science-fiction role-playing game, then some of this is already familiar; if not, no matter--this story introduces the vast human-dominated interstellar empire of the far future in ways only the designer and chronicler of this particular universe can.

The Game was authentic from top to bottom, and most players had forgotten it was a game. When the reigning Emperor really was murdered, the prime suspect was the game's main programmer, Kerickson. Fired from his job, pursued by a policeman convinced of his guilt, Kerickson sneaked into the Game to find the real murderer. But he had lost access to his control room and only had the aid of the mouse-munching owl who was the Goddess of Wisdom--if only she were programmed correctly. But Minerva had more bugs than Cerberus had teeth.

Worlds of the Imperium

When Brion Bayard was kidnapped and brought to the alternate world where Earth's history took a different turn, it was not a pleasant experience. It was, however, a startling experience. Here was a world that was just like the Earth he was taken from--with just a few subtle changes. On top of all this, Brion was given a puzzling assignment by his captors. He was to secretly enter a palace, and kill a dangerous and tyrannical dictator. There was one, small catch--the hated dictator in this world was the mirror image of Brion Bayard. For on an Alternate Earth, Brion's is his own worst enemy!

Seven from the Stars

As they watched humanity and Earth being destroyed they were determined to fight and survive, but they now faced an enemy able to live undetected in a human host, unrestricted by time and space, and determined to rule!

The legendary Commissar Ciaphas Cain, lauded as one of the great heroes of the Imperium, finds himself thrust onto the battlefield again. Cain wants nothing more than to keep out of trouble and get to the other side of his commission in one piece, but the war-torn 41st millennium has other ideas. Confronted with the powers of Chaos and hordes of alien foes, our intrepid Commissar seeks to sidestep danger and talk his way out of trouble. Yet each time he survives his legend only grows, and his life is in ever-greater jeopardy...

Defender of the Imperium contains the novels:

• Death or Glory
• Duty Calls
• Cain's Last Stand

Plus the short story 'Traitor's Gambit' and a new introduction from author Sandy Mitchell.

In the war torn future of the 41st Millennium Commissar Ciaphas Cain, hero of the Imperium, is respected by his peers and an inspiration to his men - at least that's what the propaganda would have you believe. The reality is very different, for Ciaphas is simply looking for an easy life and a way to stay out of peril. However, fate has a habit of throwing him into the deadliest situations, and luck (mixed with self preservation) always manages to pull him through and onto the loftiest of pedestals. To survive Commissar Cain must dodge, bluff and trick his way out of trouble, even if it increases his status beyond his control!

Written by Sandy Mitchell. This omnibus edition contains the novels:

• For the Emperor
• Caves of Ice
• The Traitor's Hand

Along with the short stories

• 'Fight or Flight'
• 'Echoes of the Tomb'
• 'The Beguiling'

Star-crossed lovers Gareth Martinez and Caroline Sula have decisively beaten the forces of the corrupt Zanshaa government. It seems all there's left to do is to travel to the capital of Zanshaa to reunite the empire under the banner of the Restoration. Before they can sweep up the pieces, though, it's revealed that any advance would spring an enemy trap. To make things worse, their opponents have more resources than Martinez and Sula could have imagined, and a superior force is now aimed at the heart of the Restoration.

But before Martinez and Sula can contend with the gathering enemy forces, a surprising act of violence on Sula's part threatens their relationship--and damages their trust. Hurt and confused, Martinez sends Sula into exile while he tries to recover from his broken heart. Somehow, these two lovers must repair their relationship in order to defeat this new enemy threat... especially when more than love is at stake.

Contents:

• Mutineers' Moon
• The Armageddon Inheritance
• Heirs of Empire

For Colin MacIntyre, it began with a routine training flight over the moon. For Dahak, a self-aware Imperial battleship, it began millennia ago, standing guard against an unknown enemy which once devastated the galaxy-and now has returned. So Dahak grabbed MacIntyre's ship and informed him that he was drafted to be its new captain and lead the fight against the ancient enemy.

MacIntyre had doubts that he could handle the job, but Dahak had definitely picked the right man. Before it was all over, MacIntyre would:

Defeat a cadre of mutineers, formerly part of Dahak's crew, kept alive through untold generations by alien technology, who have been secretly manipulating life on earth for thousands of years...

Mobilize the planet into a fighting force that might have a slender chance of stopping the ancient alien menace from eradicating all intelligent life in its path...

And resurrect the ancient galactic empire, which had fallen into chaos and barbarism, with himself as Emperor-which meant that he immediately became the target of a plot to assassinate him, and strand his son and daughter on a planet where their chances of surviving in a superstitious pre-tech society would be zero for the average human...

Fortunately for the galaxy, Colin MacIntyre and his heirs have never even heard of average, and anyone, human or alien, who got in their way was going to be very, very sorry.

For Lt. Commander Colin Maclntyre, it began as a routine training flight over the Moon. For Dahak, a self-aware Imperial battleship, it began millennia ago when that powerful artificial intelligence underwent a mutiny in the face of the enemy. The mutiny was never resolved--Dahak was forced to maroon not just the mutineers but the entire crew on prehistoric Earth. Dahak has been helplessly waiting as the descendants of the loyal crew regressed while the mutineers maintained control of technology that kept them alive as the millennia passed.

But now Dahak's sensors indicate that the enemy that devastated the Imperium so long ago has returned--and Earth is in their path. For the sake of the planet, Dahak must mobilize its defenses. And that it cannot do until the mutineers are put down. So Dahak has picked Colin Maclntyre to be its new captain.

Now Maclntyre must mobilize humanity to destroy the mutineers once and for all--or Earth will become a cinder in the path of galactic conquest.

Colin MacIntyre, a NASA astronaut kidnapped by a starship impersonating Earth's moon, has just suppressed a five-thousand-year-old mutiny, but now he faces an even bigger challenge.

For really tough jobs, Emperor Colin, the first of that name, is your man. The only person in the galaxy ever to stop the genocidal Achuutani, he went on from there to resurrect an empire that died fourty-five thousand years ago. He's still got a few problems - like a traitor out to murder him and three-quarters of a billion of his subjects - but if anyone can handle the job, it's Colin. But the rest of the galaxy better brace itself, because his progeny are on the way. Not that Sean and Harriet aren't nice kids; it's just that they've had a bad day.They're a long way from home, marooned with a blown up starship that's left them stranded on a theocratic world of gun powder and pikes, and Mother Church of that world doesn't like them very much. In fact, she's declared them demons, proclaimed Holy War, marshalled the Holy Host, and ordered them exterminated. You might think that things look pretty bleak for the kids, but in reality it's Mother Church that's in trouble - because Sean and Harry are chips off the old block - and they're about to get angry...

Contains:

• Assignment in Nowhere
• The Other Side of Time

Appeared in Ace Double F-127 in 1962.

When Brion Bayard was kidnapped and brought to the alternate world where Earth's history took a different turn, it was not a pleasant experience. It was, however, a startling experience. Here was a world that was just like the Earth he was taken from--with just a few subtle changes. On top of all this, Brion was given a puzzling assignment by his captors. He was to secretly enter a palace, and kill a dangerous and tyrannical dictator. There was one, small catch--the hated dictator in this world was the mirror image of Brion Bayard. For on an Alternate Earth, Brion's is his own worst enemy!

Imperial Intelligence Agent Brion Bayard was catapulted into nothingness by an unknown force and woke to find himself in a universe not his own. Surrounded by hulking, cannibalistic ape men who called themselves Haroon, Bayard was soon entrapped in a web of time lines. He found himself running from the Hagroon into the arms of Dzok, the educated monkey man of Xonijeel; transported by Dzok to a universe where Napoleon the Fifth was in power and left there to the tender powers of the beautiful witch woman Olivia; struggling in the bonds of a fictitious past, always striving to regain his lost universe of Zero-zero Stockholm so he could bring the warning which might save his world from sudden, violent death.

It seemed as though the world was eroding right under everyone's feet. Stories disappeared from magazines; the baron's silver coat of arms, polished in the morning, was pitted with corrosion by afternoon; toadstools were springing up from every corner. And these were but the first signs of the coming plague, a cancerous orgy of patternless vitality seeking to engulf the world...

To stem the tide.... Carefree Johnny Curlon, indelicately plucked from his fishing boat one evening, is bluntly informed by high powers that he is a man destined for a role in great affairs: only his unique powers can prevent the coming probability crisis that threatens to turn the world into bubbling chaos...

Rats beware - The Imperium's on your tail! Brion Bayard, once of our own timeline and now imperioum Agent extraordinaire, had been on some-pretty damgerous missions before - but never had he encountered so noxious a foe as the invading legions of giant plague-ridden rats who walked like men, spreading disease across the multiple universes of the imerium.

Captain Felix Duval and the crew of the Temerarious quietly patrol a remote Mentak Coalition colony system where nothing ever happens. But when they answer a distress call from a moon under attack, that peaceful existence is torn apart. They rescue a scientist, Thales, who's developing revolutionary technology to create new wormholes. He just needs a few things to make it fully operational... and now, ordered to aid the scientist, the Temerarious is targeted by two rival black-ops teams intent on reacquiring Thales. Can Felix trust Thales? Or is this a conspiracy to tip the balance of power in the galaxy forever?

Bianca Xing has spent a lifetime on a provincial planet, dreaming of travelling the stars. When her planet is annexed by the Barony of Letnev, Bianca finds herself being taken into custody, told that she's special - the secret daughter of a brilliant scientist, hidden away on a remote planet for her own safety. But the truth about Bianca is stranger. There are secrets hidden in her genetic code that could have galaxy altering consequences. Driven by an incredible yearning and assisted by the fearsome Letnev Captain, Dampierre, Bianca must follow her destiny to the end, even if it leads to places that are best left forgotten.

The balance of power is shifting, with bold new alliances, unknown invaders, and the rumored return of the galaxy's ancient masters. When black-ops spy Amina Azad saves a Hacan ambassador from assassination, she draws him into her investigation of a vast conspiracy: unseen forces are destabilizing the whole galaxy, at the worst possible time. Pursued by agents from dozens of other factions, they can only make progress by allying with their apparent enemies. But even they might be compromised--duped into action by a secret puppet-master. How can they trust an alliance when they can't trust themselves?