Battlegroup Z

Thirty-five years of peace. One vicious attack destroys it all. Reservist Lieutenant Justin Spencer loves every minute of flying fighters through space during his annual two-week tour with the Coalition Defense Force. The job back home isn't nearly as thrilling as blowing up asteroids with the squadron under his command, but it keeps him close to his wife and daughter. After all, joining the CDF was only for the free education. Justin never expected a battle, much less a war. With one shot across his cockpit, peacetime fades into memory. An unexpected enemy emerges with overwhelming force designed to obliterate the Terran Coalition. The League of Sol has a different name, but it's the same communist regime that chased away much of Earth's population hundreds of years ago. Illusions of returning home are shattered in a single instant. Simulated battles become all too real, and it's full-on engagement or permanent elimination. Death and destruction erupt across the Terran Coalition and leave Justin in a protracted war with only one truth remaining. The battlefield will leave no one unscathed.

Protracted war is inevitable. Six weeks ago, Lieutenant Justin Spencer was just another reservist in the Coalition Defense Force. Becoming a lifer wasn't in the cards-until the League of Sol brutally attacked the Terran Coalition. With several pivotal battles now under his belt, friends and strangers alike call Justin a hero. But he finds the accolades difficult to swallow when the night only intensifies images from his first taste of combat. Then he's faced with an active duty extension. The League is hitting supply convoys on their long journeys between the mining colonies. Without the rare minerals, Coalition shipyards can't produce the needed firepower to fight off losses sustained from the enemy's overwhelming forces. An enemy that appears to anticipate the CDF's every play. When the CSV Zvika Greengold is tapped for a black ops action, Justin volunteers to pilot a captured enemy aircraft on what he discovers too late is a suicide mission. For any chance of survival, he'll need to rely on more than sheer skill and dumb luck. He'll need a miracle.

The counter-attack begins now. Captain Justin Spencer has one goal: to execute battle missions with excellence and bring everyone in his galactic fighter squadron safely home. Yet for too long, the Coalition Defense Force has been engaged in a defensive fight with the League of Sol on the Terran Coalition's home turf. No longer. The CSV Zvika Greengold is once again called upon for a highly clandestine assignment – take the war deep into enemy territory and attack the very heart of the League. It's been generations since anyone has seen Earth after the communist League chased humanity's ancestors from their former home, and Justin is eager to lead the squadron of stealth recon fighters for some payback. Regardless of the danger that awaits them. Facing the likelihood of no return, thoughts turn to matters of the heart – and soul. Family reunions are all-too brief. The months-long trip toward Earth gives Justin time to contemplate what waits for them in the great beyond. But when the carrier becomes a floundering fortress, it falls to Justin and the brave men and women of the CSV Zvika Greengold to fight their way to freedom as their ancestors once did – by any means necessary. Or spend the rest of their lives in the hands of a merciless enemy.

War's cost is a bitter pill. Eleven months of non-stop combat have transformed Captain Justin Spencer from a cocky reservist into a battle-hardened veteran. While new recruits rotate in to replace once familiar faces, nothing mitigates the sting that haunts Justin with each loss. Or silences the doubts that keep him from taking a complete leap of faith. News from the battlefront remains grim even after the CSV Zvika Greengold's daring strike against the League of Sol's home turf. Despite technological superiority, overwhelming numbers of League battleships continue to outgun the Coalition Defense Force, leaving their superiors to draw a chilling conclusion. The war is unwinnable. The Terran Coalition's saving grace has been independent merchants, transporting materials from outlying mining colonies to Coalition shipyards, keeping the CDF in the fight – until pirates with high-grade weaponry start picking off the freighters one-by-one. Instead of trading valuable cargo for innocent lives, however, the pirates have only one horrifying goal: leave no survivors. Justin and the crew of the CSV Zvika Greengold are thrust into unfamiliar territory against a ruthless enemy willing to go to any lengths to avoid capture. And pay any price to protect its secrets.

The safety is off. After witnessing his son's birth, Captain Justin Spencer contemplates leaving active duty in the Coalition Defense Force for a training post. New pilots straight from the academy are sorely unprepared for combat conditions, just like he was when the war with the League of Sol began. But after a year of intense dogfights, the CDF can't afford continued losses from ill-equipped rookies. Especially when disaster strikes. Pirates target a civilian starliner, forcing the CSV Zvika Greengold to renew an old acquaintance. The intelligence agent's methods are unorthodox at best, but Colonel Tehrani is determined to avenge the innocent. No matter the cost. Sustained CDF presence in neutral space brings back bad memories of Terran Coalition overreach in the fiercely independent outposts. But to flush out the culprits responsible for the horrific tragedy, Justin and the Greengold will go wherever the evidence takes them. Even when their actions threaten to start another war.

The tide of galactic war turns – but in whose favor? The Coalition Defense Force is putting the hurt on the League of Sol. Despite the League's superior numbers, Captain Justin Spencer and his fighter squadron return victorious after each enemy engagement. But it's only the calm before the storm. The Eire system's loss in the early days of war was a bitter pill for the Terran Coalition. Now the Coalition is pulling out all the stops to rescue her citizens from the hands of a repressive regime bent on domination at any cost. But the enemy is cunning. When the CDF presses what they think is an advantage, the League's strategy becomes painfully clear: they've been lured into a trap. As missiles fly and staggering losses mount, Justin and the CSV Zvika Greengoldare embroiled in the dogfight of their lives. And many will make the ultimate sacrifice.