AFV Defender Series

Etrusca was a warrior woman in the distant past of Nisandros, who defied the clan heads and fought to turn her world from the worship of the Ancestors and back to worshipping and serving Enlo.   For that she nearly died. Many times.   Blue tattoo lines marked the scars around her eyes and mouth where her enemies tried to blind her and silence her forever. Women of Nisandros tattooed their eyes with blue lines to honor Etrusca and to vow service to Enlo.   M'kar earned her blue lines at age eight, when an adventure nearly killed her, and dropped her into a mystery she would spend the next twenty-some years trying to unravel.   Follow her as her Talent awakens and she gains allies and enemies, until the day she returns to Nisandros to solve the mystery, very much against her will.

These are the adventures of  the E&D ship, AFV Defender. While they aren't quite as death-defying as a certain other notorious ship in the Fleet, they're developing a legend of their own. Some good. Some bad. But most important, they're a family, with all the benefits and drawbacks.   Every day is a new adventure. If their misfit luck doesn't finally run out on them.   INQUEST: AFV Defender Book 4   Signals are coming from beyond the edges of charted space. All indications are that they are being generated by the broken pieces of a Gate, used by the ancient Gatekeepers to scatter all the Human races across the universe.   Except that as far as anyone knew, nothing could dent a Gate, forget break it. Yet the legendary warrior, Etrusca, scattered pieces of broken Gate across known and unknown space. Now, a response is coming in. As one of the top E&D (Exploration and Diplomacy) ships in the Alliance Fleet, the Defender heads across the galaxy to find out just who or what is sending the signal.   Except this time, they've been partnered with the Inquest. The only ship in the Fleet with a stranger reputation and record than the Defender. The notorious Captain Illean Shryne and her crew of rule-breakers and miracle-workers always manage to escape from the jaws of death and return covered in glory. Unfortunately, the ships sent on missions with them don't fare so well ...  

A story between novels.   The crew of the Defender had run afoul of the irritating, silly little con man Jorono Cynes one time too many.   He was supposed to be in custody for the rest of his life, but somehow Cynes showed up in the middle of a shore leave that was anything but relaxing.   Lt. M'kar and Security Chief Decker were supposed to be guiding some of the ship's children through a wilderness survival experience, but even though they were on shore leave, they knew their duty. They had to deal with Cynes and get him back into the hands of the authorities ASAP.   And if they could have some fun and frighten the irritating little troublemaker while they were at it, all the better.  

Here There Were Dragons    Dracs: the gift that keeps giving. And making life very interesting for the crew of the AFV Defender.   A spatial anomaly near the drac homeworld, a forbidden island, and signs of a civilization that self-destructed are just the tip of the iceberg. When spoiled brat Ambassador Vitiarre's plot to get his hands on dracs is foiled, he sets out to make trouble for the Defender, and especially Chief of Talents M'kar. His long-standing feud with her father, Ashrock, just makes everything worse. Then a new Chute opens up near the drac homeworld, leading to a planet with dragons in its legends. Despite no dragons present on the planet now, Vitiarre breaks regulations to invade and claim his own dragon. His schemes lead to the Defender being sent to mend the trouble he made with the matriarchal society of Castitarus.   The misfit luck of the Defender is hard at work. Male crew are kidnapped. The dracs develop allergies. Female officers are offered diplomatic gifts of men. And the crew race to find a cure for a disease that turns grown men into children -- starting with Security Chief Decker, and Ashrock.   A typical mission for the crew of the AFV Defender.

They were the anomalies, the Talents that didn't check all the boxes or fit within neat, understood, traditional guidelines. Gathered together under a Premier Master at the Academy on Le'anka, the nine Talents were called Infrenx, for the magical bird of legend, of healing and power … and sometimes destruction.   When they graduated, they scattered through the Alliance, using their Talents to serve and protect.   Their greatest challenge came when some members of Infrenx class returned to Le'anka for what they thought would be a time of rest and fun and reunion. An enemy had struck, managing to slide past the security precautions of the Academy, the headquarters and birthplace of the Alliance. As the members of Infrenx class discovered, even the mighty bird of legend had a nemesis, and it would take all their combined strength and training and the ultimate sacrifice to defend their home.

Friendly Fire   Captain Genys Arroyan has a problem with her shiny new command -- the dregs of the universe are laughing.   While the Defender is in spacedock, getting upgrades, Genys has to deal with mind-hunters and farting fur balls, merchants-of-insanity and diplomatic intrigue. Her Chief of Talents is hiding from forced matrimony and her new crewmembers aren't too happy to be transferred to the Nanny Ship.   Then she finds out that the insectoid Hivers have a taste for the brains of the children of her crew. Falling through a Chute to another galaxy might turn out to be a good thing, even if dangerous.   A rescue mission turns into a battle to save a race of miniature dragons from genocide. They might just be sentient -- but more important, dracs could turn out to be the defensive weapon the Alliance needs against the Hiver threat. Genys and her crew could end up breaking dozens of regulations in the quest to save dracs and maybe the Human race.  Just how much trouble could teleporting, fire-breathing creatures with the personalities of four-year-olds cause on board a military vessel?   The misfit luck of the AFV Defender might finally be running out.

Before Genys Arroyan was captain, and M'kar was Chief of Talents and Treinna was head of linguistics and Jasper was chief engineer … in the golden years under Captain Rob Hollis's leadership …   A dark shadow from the crewmates' past shows up to make life and a new, precarious mission difficult for the junior officers of the Defender. A nomadic fleet grudgingly agrees to host a diplomatic team from the Alliance.  M'kar's animal-focused Talent is needed to help the ambassador leave the flagship when the birds that inhabit and overwhelm and perhaps even run the ships of the fleet … won't let him leave.

For forty years, the Hiver menace has left devastation in its wake: prisoners bound in cocoons, trapped in living death, with no known way to safely free them.   Then the dragons of Castitarus, the Numenjax, chose Confri to become caretaker for a Numenjax egg and pair with the hatchling. Hope returned to the caretakers of hundreds of cocoons, when young Jax's presence awoke brain activity within the cocoons.   Now, in the wake of the mission to Xanprecis and the shattering of a broken Gate, the missing element might finally be in the hands of the Alliance. Will Jax be able to harness the untamed, alien energy, and break the hold the cocoons hold on their prisoners?   M'kar, Thyal, the Defender and all their dracs return to Anwesta Medical Station to make that risky first attempt.

Only a Talent can establish communication with the Castitaran dragons, known as numenjax. But when the communication short-circuits Confri and knocks her out cold, she thinks her part in the project is over. Until the numenjax come up with a much more creative plan!