Brainship

Nancia is her name, NX-928 her designation. Enter a future world in which brains are connected to computers to help run cities and ships; brainless bodies or brawn do the physical work. In the second book of the Brainship series, a new "shellperson", someone born with grave physical disabilities that required her human body to be encased in a massive titanium column-is provided a direct link between her mind and the computer of her ship, XN-935. Nancia is now a brand-new member of the elite Courier Service of the Central Worlds, the "brainship" of the most advanced interstellar ships around. But her innocent vision of human nature is shattered on her first voyage. Nevertheless, the idealistic Nancia and her worldly-wise new "brawn" partners must band together to save the galaxy.

Hypatia Cade-a headstrong, smart, and spunky 7-year-old girl-falls ill after contracting an alien virus that renders her a quadriplegic. Robbed of her mobility, Tia's only hope to be free of the prison of her body is to train to be one of the legendary star travelers, a brainship, a cyborg human being and interstellar spacecraft. Following her training, she must find the right partner to be her brawn, the human element every brainship requires. When the disease that debilitated Tia threatens thousands more, selecting a brawn who is her true soul mate may allow Tia to find the origin of the terrible plague, and perhaps even a cure.

A huge space station on the fringes of human space, SSS-900 is controlled by the brain of Simeon, a shellperson who relieves his daily monotony by replaying computer simulations of great battles. When a battered, jury-rigged ship appears to threaten the station, they rescue the people who are fleeing from the vicious Kolnari pirates. As the Kolnari take over the station, the stationers and the Bethelites from the rescued ship must devise ways to work together to fight the invaders. Luckily, Simeon's love of wargaming has unexpected uses, and he clandestinely builds his trap for the Kolnari. Will Simeon become the only thing standing between ruthless alien pirates and total destruction?

Carialle was born so physically disadvantaged that her only chance for life was as a shellperson. As the brain, Carialle, is a bodiless human wired into a spaceship, while her human partner, Keff, is the brawn. Their mission: to search the galaxy for intelligent beings. Intelligent life is thin on the galactic ground, so when Carialle and Keff arrive on a very nice little world with very nice little aliens-fuzzy, polite, and eager to please-they are overjoyed. But appearances are deceiving-their fuzzy friends turn out to be virtual slaves to a race of sorcerers who seem to possess magical powers of frightening potency. By the time the explorers discover the planet's secrets, they find themselves in a desperate battle to save it.