Time Traders/Ross Murdock

Ross Murdock had a choice, prison or volunteering for Operation Retrograde. He didn't like those choices, not at all. Unwilling, he volunteered to go back in time and become a foot soldier in a time war. It was a choice that would change his life and shape his future. It was a war that had to be fought, and it had to be won.

The first novel in the classic series, in which wars are no longer fought on land, in the air, or on the sea-but throughout time and space itself . . . The never-ending tension between Russia and the United States has been escalated by a stunning new variable: time travel. While the Americans can roughly utilize the technology, the Russians have learned the secret of space travel-and that makes the US vulnerable. What they need is someone expendable to send through time to obtain the same secret. Ross Murdock doesn't consider himself expendable. He's just a smart guy who made some bad choices that led him to a life of crime. But when he's given a choice between medical "rehabilitation" and joining the mysterious Operation Retrograde, he decides to go along with the military option and hope for a chance to get away. And he is going to get away-farther away than he ever imagined . . .

Ross Murdock had a choice, prison or volunteering for Operation Retrograde. He didn't like those choices, not at all. Unwilling, he volunteered to go back in time and become a foot soldier in a time war. It was a choice that would change his life and shape his future. It was a war that had to be fought, and it had to be won.

Intelligence agents have uncovered something beyond belief, but the evidence is incontrovertible: the USA's greatest adversary is sending its own agents back through time! And someone (or something) is presenting them with technologies and weapons far beyond our most advanced science. We have only one option: create time-transfer technology ourselves, find the opposition's ancient source...and take it down!

Alien technology scavenged by U.S. and Russian scientists has started a race to colonize planets outside our solar system -- and the U.S. scientists are losing! In a desperate move the U.S. government decides to use a group of Apache volunteers in an experimental attempt to colonize a primitive planet, but before they can even begin their spaceship crashes on the planet Topaz...

Operation Cochise: a carefully planned Western move to colonize a planet ahead of the Russians. Travis Fox had been an eager volunteer, but the morning he dragged himself half-conscious from the wrecked spaceship on the planet Topaz, he sensed the terror which would threaten the project. Travis never learned why the ship had crashed, nor why he and the other Apache agents had been shot into space without warning. But he quickly finds that the Russians already had a horde of barbaric Mongols on the planet. Now if Travis can't unravel the secret of the eerie underground chamber in the towers hidden in a valley of mist, both Topaz and Terra could be destroyed.

A battle for survival begins and ends in the human mind in the third thrilling novel in the Time Traders series following Galactic Derelict. The latest gambit by the Western powers to outmaneuver the Russians was Operation Cochise-which launched Travis Fox and his crew on a ship bound for the planet Topaz. At least that's what Fox thinks . . . All he knows for sure is that something went wrong and they crash landed. Everything else is a fog of warped memories. When they come across a band of Russians who have also had their memories obliterated, Fox begins to suspect they are all pawns in a much larger game. And his speculations are right. Someone is manipulating them. Observing them. And if Fox and his newfound allies cannot find a way to break free from their mental bonds, their captors may never be stopped.

Operation Cochise: a carefully planned Western move to colonize a planet ahead of the Russians. Travis Fox had been an eager volunteer, but the morning he dragged himself half-conscious from the wrecked spaceship on the planet Topaz, he sensed the terror which would threaten the project. Travis never learned why the ship had crashed, nor why he and the other Apache agents had been shot into space without warning. But he quickly finds that the Russians already had a horde of barbaric Mongols on the planet. Now if Travis can't unravel the secret of the eerie underground chamber in the towers hidden in a valley of mist, both Topaz and Terra could be destroyed.

Ashe Gordon and Ross Murdock, angry about the loss of their fellow agent Travis Fox on the planet Topaz, have travelled to the planet Hawaikan, a warm ocean planet, where they intend to set up a time gate. The world is so different from what they expected that they decide on a risky experiment: travel into the past of the planet, accompanied by two mutant dolphins and a female agent of Polynesian ancestry.

Sent from Terra to probe the past of the deserted planet Hawaika, Time Agents Ross Murdock and Gordon Ashe are startled when murky underwater pictures of ancient races locked in a fierce battle for supremacy suddenly appear on their time-probe. Despite prophetic warnings of Karara, a Polynesian girl, the Agents decide to invade the past and uncover the secrets of this barren, lotus world.

Time Agents Ross Murdock and Gordon Ashe have accompanied a group of settlers to the planet Hawaika, which is populated by descendants of Earth's Polynesia. But while it seems like a tropical paradise, there are some disturbing signs of previous inhabitants who apparently vanished. Accompanied by Karara-a local girl who can communicate with dolphins-Murdock and Ashe travel to the past to see if the disappearance is connected to the mysterious alien race, the Baldies, who have manipulated Earth's own history. Unfortunately, a violent storm wrecks their time gate, stranding them in past Hawaika. Murdock and Ashe discover they were right about the Baldies interfering in the past. And unless they can find a way to stop them, the future will pay the price.

Sent from Terra to probe the past of the deserted planet Hawaika, Time Agents Ross Murdock and Gordon Ashe are startled when murky underwater pictures of ancient races locked in a fierce battle for supremacy suddenly appear on their time-probe. Despite prophetic warnings of Karara, a Polynesian girl, the Agents decide to invade the past and uncover the secrets of this barren, lotus world.

Compiled in one book, the essential collection of Time Traders books by Andre Norton: The Defiant Agents Key Out of Time The Time Traders.