The War of Alien Aggression
Hardway, Kamikaze, Lancer, Taipan, Cozen's War.
All five books in a single volume - the war with the Squidies from the first engagement to the final detonations.
640 pages, 192K words
Hardway
Intelligent life reaches out to Humanity using particle beam weapons and masers. The pilots and crew of the carrier Hardway are first to fight in the conflict that quickly escalates from a bloody first contact to a full-scale, interstellar war. Ram Devlin knows he and the rest of Humanity may have been tricked into engaging in a war that didn't have to happen. The verity of the history being written is in doubt, but the survival of his crew and the very future of mankind is at stake.
Kamikaze
The privateer attack carrier Hardway invades Procyon to destroy an alien blockade gun meant to keep the human race confined. Hardway and her pilots meet their match in the Squidies' massive gun and the alien aces that protect it until they discover why the aliens are beating them. Hardway's officers must commit to paying for victory in war's only true currency.
Lancer
Privateer Admiral Harry Cozen needs pilots for an experimental fighter squadron, so he offers the inmates of Bailey Prison a deal. Colt is serving 5-7 and he knows the deal is too good to be true, but he still takes it. He and the rest of the C-Block nuggets learn to fly the new F-151 Bitzer and prepare to sortie against alien aces on a mission far more dangerous than anyone's telling them.
Taipan
The privateer attack carrier Hardway is drafted into a force group commanded by Harry Cozen's bitter rival from Staas Company. She stole his fighter program and his thousand new pilots. Now, she's determined to use them as cannon fodder. Nobody can argue with her battle record, but the officers and crew of Hardway and the Lancers of the 133rd Fighter Test Squadron may be all that can keep her pilots alive in a knife-fight deep behind enemy lines.
Cozen's War
The Staas Privateers and the UN fleet have brought the fight to the Squidies' home system. The massive Earth invasion fleet faces off against every ship the Squidies' can muster. Harry Cozen is in command and this is his greatest gambit, but alien propaganda threatens to reveal the war's greatest secret on the very day the broadest and bloodiest battle of the conflict unfolds. Knowing how thin the margin is between victory and defeat, Ram Devlin races to the Squidies' homeworld moon with a weapon of mass destruction that could end the war in seconds. Humanity must win, but the price of victory may be a thousand more years of war.