Download or read book The Pursuit Of The Valdakk written by Douglas R. Maercklein and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2010-05-26 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pursuit of the Valdakk. A spaceship is missing. It belongs to the alien Tasak, and they have come to the planetary commonwealth of Ancinnion to seek help. The provincial council minister is in no position to refuse the Tasak, and Anadar Tolarin, a political cogwheel with a checkered past, is persuaded to shepherd the recovery operation. It is a simple job that will return great patronage and large sums of money for everyone involved, but there are a few problems. The ship in question turns out to have been missing for eighty-five years. The Valdakk is a warship, and evidently, it carries some secret weapon. The Tasak cannot explain exactly how this ship has become lost, why it has taken so long for them to come for it, or what terrible cargo it contains; however, they are convinced they know where it is. Anadar embarks aboard a powerful new combat vessel, but his nefarious political career has produced enemies, and the selection of the crew has left him suspicious, if not fearful. The dark corners of such a large warship conceal myriad dangers, and he senses only resentment from everyone aboard except the ship physician, a woman without a past. Against his better judgment, he picks up an alien pilot for his quest into the Rim Nebula, and to no one’s surprise, they are shadowed by the ships of a notorious criminal syndicate, the Ultracaan. They locate the Valdakk , but the ship evades them, and recovery becomes pursuit. It is a race now against a treacherous competitor—a contest at gunpoint with each played against the other by a quarry that always seems to stay one step ahead. Every contact grows more perilous, every battle more dangerous, every confrontation more personal. Anadar’s future and the fate of his mission will ultimately depend on the skills and courage of people he cannot trust. The closer he comes to the vessel, the more he discovers about the fears of the Tasak, the motivations of the Ultracaan, and the real purpose of his quest. Anadar Tolarin will grapple with his enemies, his past, and himself before he can face the Valdakk. What begins as a routine military excursion will go beyond the exercise of ships cannon, and he will discover that although much is offered, much is also demanded in the pursuit of the Valdakk .

Download or read book Killing Urdo written by and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2024-07-17 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An AIU cannot commit suicide — but URDO, the Union Republic Defense Orbital, an armored artificial intelligence unit in control of a colony star system on the edge of nowhere, has been programmed to issue a contract for its own destruction, and that time has come. Klaus Amerman, an undistinguished mid-list Syndicate ship pilot, is conscripted to carry out the deed, but he is desperate to avoid the job. Urdo is deadly dangerous, and as anyone knows, it is programmed to defend itself. He is given a ship, but his enemies abound, and he is immediately put to flight. On the run from everyone, he must sort through all the demands and all the subterfuge to unravel his predicament. Most difficult of all, he must even discover what lies he has told himself. He will have to exceed everyone’s expectations if he is to survive, or if he is ever to succeed in killing Urdo.

Download or read book The Van Winkle War written by Douglas R. Maercklein and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2024-07-12 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thousand years from now, a man revived from spaceship-failure hibernation is known as a Van Winkle. Marco Ledger, rescued and re-conscripted after eighty-five years, is caught in a future where the manipulation of war has become science. Arissa Barancour, owner of a deep space junkyard at the nexus of the next conflict is the only one who might save him. The fates of Marco and of Arissa are bound to a young mathematician, the artificial intelligence unit of mothballed warship, a cadre of double agents, and a crew of misfit aliens. The admirals have opened the door to that rare chance their schemes did not anticipate. After the dust settles they will discover the playing cards have refused to lie down, and they will have to fight the war they did not expect–the Van Winkle War.

Download or read book The Pursuit of Happiness A Book of Studies and Strowings written by Daniel G Brinton and published by . This book was released on 2023-06-16 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The pursuit of happiness, -the pursuit of one's own happiness, -is it a vain quest? and, if not vain, is it a worthy object of life? There have been plenty to condemn it on both grounds. They have said that the endeavor is hopeless; that to study the art of being happy is like studying the art of making gold, which is the only art by which gold can never be made. Nothing, they add, is so unpropitious to happiness as the very effort to attain it. They go farther. "Let life," they proclaim, "have a larger purpose than enjoyment." They quote the mighty Plato, when he demands that the right aim of living shall stand apart, and out of all relation to pleasure or pain. They declare that the theory of happiness as an end is the most dangerous of all in modern sociology-the tap-root of the worst weeds in the political theories of the day, for the reason that the individual pursuit of enjoyment is necessarily destructive of that of society at large. Moreover, they urge, who dares write of it? For he who has not enjoyed it, cannot speak wisely of it; and in him who has attained it, 'twere insolence to boast of it.

Download or read book The Van Winkle War written by Douglas R Maercklein and published by Xlibris Us. This book was released on 2024-07-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thousand years from now, a man revived from spaceship-failure hibernation is known as a Van Winkle. Marco Ledger, rescued and re-conscripted after eighty-five years, is caught in a future where the manipulation of war has become science. Arissa Barancour, owner of a deep space junkyard at the nexus of the next conflict is the only one who might save him. The fates of Marco and of Arissa are bound to a young mathematician, the artificial intelligence unit of mothballed warship, a cadre of double agents, and a crew of misfit aliens. The admirals have opened the door to that rare chance their schemes did not anticipate. After the dust settles they will discover the playing cards have refused to lie down, and they will have to fight the war they did not expect-the Van Winkle War.