AFV Defender

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.

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.