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Humanity’s thousand-year-old empire is collapsing under a mad empress, plunging the galaxy into civil war. As rebel admirals shatter the Imperial Fleet, frontier worlds are left exposed to marauders who hold life cheap and plunder without mercy. Captain Jonas Morane of the cruiser Vanquish foresaw this chaos and formed a desperate plan: lead the shattered remnants of the 197th Imperial Battle Group to a hidden sanctuary and preserve humanity’s knowledge before it’s lost to the long night of barbarism. Along the way, he rescues a Marine Pathfinder battalion and a mystical religious order, binding them to his cause. But even if they survive the flames of rebellion and the depredations of invaders, can Morane’s sanctuary—and hope for civilization—endure?
Imperial Twilight and Imperial Night continue the saga, as new empires rise, old horrors return, and humanity teeters on the brink of a darkness that may never lift.
Book 1: Imperial Sunset
Humanity’s thousand-year-old interstellar empire has been rotting from the inside for over a century, thanks to venal, corrupt, and power-hungry sovereigns from a dynasty many consider illegitimate.
The latest in that lineage, an increasingly psychotic empress, is pushing her realm toward catastrophic collapse as admirals and generals rebel against her rule. That rebellion quickly drags the once mighty Imperial Fleet into a devastating fratricidal conflict between factions.
With civil war raging across human space, a Navy torn asunder can no longer protect frontier colonies, and barbarians long confined to the galactic badlands see an opportunity. After generations of hard existence on worlds beyond the bounds of human civilization, they hold life cheap, especially that of others. The barbarians will gladly steal everything they find and condemn defenseless star systems to technological and demographic collapse.
One man, Captain Jonas Morane of the cruiser Vanquish, saw the empire’s collapse coming years before the first admiral rebelled. When he finds himself the senior surviving officer of a loyalist Navy unit almost entirely annihilated by rebels, Morane puts in motion a plan he developed long ago. This plan was designed to not only save his ships and crews from certain death but keep humanity’s accumulated knowledge from being obliterated by the long night of barbarism.
However, before his dream can become a reality, Morane must lead the remains of the 197th Imperial Battle Group across a shattered empire, dodging his former colleagues from both sides, to the sanctuary he selected. Along the way, he rescues an Imperial Marine Corps Pathfinder battalion and the survivors of a religious order known for its mysticism and enlists them in his cause. But will Morane’s sanctuary survive both the flames of rebellion and the depredations of invading marauders before his rag-tag fleet can reach it?
Book 2 – Imperial Twilight
The most powerful empire in human history is rushing headlong toward destruction, ending our species’ supremacy in the known galaxy. Two men with widely divergent visions are on a mission to save civilization far from the imperial capital where a demented ruler holds sway. The first, Jonas Morane, wants to create an impregnable vault containing humanity’s accumulated knowledge so those who survive the coming darkness can rebuild in decades instead of millennia. The other, Devy Custis, seeks to fend off collapse by founding a new empire in the Coalsack Sector, free of the madness that caused this civil war. But will either resist the ravages of a genocidal empress, blood-maddened barbarians, and scheming admirals? Unfortunately, the vicissitudes of fate, abetted by greed and lust for power, could destroy both before they make their dreams a reality.
Book 3 – Imperial Night
Humanity’s interstellar empire died in fire and blood, leaving wrecked star systems to face the long night of barbarism. One tiny spark of civilization remains: the Republic of Lyonesse. Yet that last bastion could suffer the same dire fate. When the late empress unleashed the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse on her crumbling realm, Lyonesse escaped War and Famine. However, the Pale Rider, carrying pestilence and death, still roams the wormhole network, seeking to finish off what the Imperial Retribution Fleet missed decades earlier, and he has finally found the entrance to the Lyonesse branch. What about the White Rider who brings deceit and the worship of false prophets? Perhaps he is already on Lyonesse, undermining what Jonas Morane so laboriously created. Will the Navy’s tiny, decrepit fleet stop plague ships from reaching Lyonesse while Morane and his ally Sister Gwenneth keep the fledgling republic from turning on itself? Or will Lyonesse join the rest of humanity in a long imperial night, one which might never end?