The Evolved Series

Beck Egan, a veteran Rigger in the colony at Lagrange 5, narrowly escapes death in an accident that looks suspiciously like sabotage. But sabotage by who? On one side an Earth government increasingly under the control of right-wing fanatics claims the Riggers are using animal implants to create a Godless "super-race." Now Earth threatens to come up and remove the implants by force. Opposing them a younger generation of Riggers makes secret plans to venture into "The Big Empty" in the new super-cylinder Stephen Hawking. Even though the habitat remains incomplete and the needed technology consists of wishful thinking. Caught in the middle, Beck struggles to keep  himself and his dreams alive amid violence, intrigue, and catastrophe.

When Captain Brenda Valkonen leads the first joint Earth-Peregrine Alliance into remote space to examine the wreck of an alien vessel, she does not know the fate of humanity may hang in the balance. Though only several generations removed from Earth, the Peregrines make much more use of brain implants adapted from animals to broaden their range of sensory inputs. These implants create widespread hostility on Earth, where many accuse the Peregrines of trying to create a super-race. Hopefully the Geniah expedition will serve as a model for future cooperation. They find the alien vessel lifeless. Except, of course, for the weird-looking creatures suspended in cryo. Though human in origin, they bear a distinctly skeletal, almost insectoid look, along with oversize jaws and teeth that can only serve as weapons. Who are these people? Who built this ship, and to what purpose? As the crew of the Geniah probe deeper into the vessel, Valkonen comes to suspect that they are less the observers than the observed. And as her fears of an alien invasion grow, Valkonen reluctantly draws closer to a secret that could shatter relations between Earth and the Peregrines forever.

As a generation ship way past its pull date creaks and groans toward the nearest star system that might hold out a chance for survival, the scientifically literate Riggers turn to brain enhancements in a desperate attempt to discover new technologies. But a colony of evangelical Christians fear the approach of a "Point Of No Return" beyond which God's dominion ends, condemning their souls to eternal damnation. Two teenagers, a Christian bee-keeper and a budding physicist, strike up a chance friendship that gradually draws them closer together as their worlds turn mad. Now the Christians demand the ship turn around. And if the Riggers refuse, the evangelicals would rather die on this side of the line — even if they must take the whole habitat with them. Leaving our star-crossed lovers reaching across an ever-widening gap as both sides escalate toward a final solution.

As the Evolved invaders conquer more and more of Peregrine space, Arvada Sattar and Sahan Kotori go on fighting their own war in defiance of Naval Command. While Arvada develops tactics for ambushing the enemy from deeper in the sun than anyone thought a starship could survive, Sahan carries on his hazardous mental penetrations of the enemy holobrain. When the Viveca becomes trapped inside a singularity alongside a much more powerful Evolved ship, Arvada leads the crew in hand-to-hand fighting against the enemy's Grinder infantry. But heavily outnumbered, only one hope remains. Sahan must enter the enemy holobrain and engage the Evolved Captain in a brutal psychological combat that plunges them both into the holobrain's dread "Terror Barrier." But like a black hole, what enters the Terror Barrier can never escape.

Sahan Kotori died calling out Arvada Sattar's name as he fell into the sun at Harrar's Reach. Or did he? Because after a long dim time, awareness comes to … something. Something with no body and no name. No eyes, no ears, no breath. Only a great black void. Then dreams of Arvada begin spewing out of the darkness. Searing visions of her betraying him time and again. Betraying him in combat, betraying him with a stream of lovers until the whole crew laughs at him. While Arvada laughs loudest of all. Her laughter tortures him. Someday, he vows, somehow, he will silence that laugh forever. Believing Sahan dead, Arvada fights battle after bloody battle against the Evolved and their Collaborationist allies. In a daring cruiser raid she captures an Evolved Captain; one of the Living Evolved, who has not yet crossed the chasm of the Terror Barrier to join the Group Mind. The Captain reveals a secret: Sahan still lives. The Evolved could not save his body, or all of his brain. But they did recover enough to reprogram him as a weapon — against her. Somehow Arvada must stop him. Having lost Sahan once, she cannot bear to experience that heartbreak again. But beyond that, she knows Sahan Kotori will prove the most dangerous foe she and the free Peregrines have ever faced.

His brain resurrected by the Evolved, weaponized against Arvada Sattar, and fitted with a Grinder body, Sahan Kotori now commands the Grinder forces. Haunted by the sound of her laughter as she betrayed him, he vows to cast her down into the Terror Barrier, and transform that laugh into one eternal scream. Through space battles and hand-to-hand combat amid colonies and boarded ships, Arvada hunts Sahan in turn. Though she dreads killing him, the war against the Evolved can only be decided by which of these former lovers destroys the other first.

Forced to flee Earth two centuries before, the people calling themselves the Evolved come roaring back on a mission of conquest and revenge. Now in the form of a Group Mind, they quickly scatter the navies of Earth and its allies. Two soldiers of the Peregrine Alliance strike back. Fast Cruiser Captain Arvada Sattar, young and rebellious, scorns demands from both the Evolved and her own Naval Command to stand down. Her XO, Sahan Kotori, raised in a mystical sect, excels in both meditation and combat. He also loves Arvada. But though relying on his skills, she holds him away. Wounded and haunted by the cries of the dead, Sahan leaves Arvada's ship. Through deep meditation he tries to penetrate a captured holobrain, the Evolved's brain-structured communication node. But as he delves deeper into this twisted landscape, he finds the Group Mind hunting him in turn. And if they find him, they will lock his mind in one eternal scream. But Sahan can't back out. Not after he discovers the Evolved plan to eliminate their top-priority target — Arvada Sattar.