Tartarus Gate by Matthew P. Gilbert

The Empire is dead!

Captain Josiah Bleys, smuggler and charmer though he may be, is likely to soon follow unless he is willing to at least pretend to be something he loathes: a hero. His ‘pal’ Chief Ragnar Kane, one of the Emperor’s finest warriors, likewise harbors no aspirations toward gallantry, just upping his kill count.

Fate, though, has other plans. The Empire is dying, brought to its knees by a terrifying, intelligent plague from hyperspace. The core worlds are mass graves, the outlying colonies suddenly isolated and on their own.

Luck has both men stuck on the icy facility on Cerberus, an installation that won’t last long without resupply. Bleys and Kane must mount a raid on a nearby planet to retrieve a legendary scientist in the hopes that he can reconnect them to civilization.

The trouble is that the scientist isn’t exactly willing, nor is he exactly….alive.

Category: Science Fiction – Alien Invasion