Empire from the Ashes
 WE
HAVE A JOB FOR YOU
...
Just a routine
day in lunar
orbit.
That's all Lieutenant Commander Colin Maclntyre,
USN,
expected. Only a
simple training mission
to test
a new
survey instrument
intended for
the first manned American-Russian interstellar
flight.
What he got
was just a bit different.
First, there was
the fact
that Earth
didn't
actually have a Moon.
Then there
was the three
thousand-kilometer diameter alien starship pretending it was the
Moon. And
the millennia-old cybernetic intelligence that
shanghaied him to
serve as its crew.
Colin might have been forgiven
for thinking
that
those were enough surprises for any one man, but there were a few other
small problems.
Like the deadly mutiny which
had been raging longer than
the human
race had
existed on
Earth ... and still wasn't over.
Or like
the millions
of other starships, crewed by genocidal aliens
dedicated to the extermination
of all possible competing life forms, which just
happened to
be headed straight towards Earth.
Or like the interstellar empire whose aid
offered humanity's only hope for survival...
except for the minor fact
that its last emperor and all of his subjects had died
forty-five thousand years ago.
Add in the occasional homicidal terrorist, religious fanatics convinced
that the only good Maclntyre was a dead Maclntyre,
a bic-weapon
capable of killing every living thing on any planet, a super-bomb which
could take out whole worlds, a starship drive which could destroy complete
solar systems, and the need to organize the entire planet Earth—
and all of
its warring, mutually murderous factions—for
a probably
hopeless last-ditch defense, and Colin was
convinced that things
were just about as
bad as
they could possibly get.
Until he found out whose job it had just become to fix all those
problems, of course....
ABOUT THE
AUTHOR
Undeniably the science fiction phenomenon of the
decade,
New York Times bestselling author David
Weber is often compared to C.S. Forester (the celebrated creator of
Captain Horatio Hornblower) and is the recipient
of
critical praise worthy of Heinlein or Asimov.
His hordes of voracious fans clamor for more and more Weber. Fortunately
for them, Weber keeps steadily producing book after book with first
printings that
sell out almost immediately, then go
back
into printing after printing after printing.
His
novels range from epic fantasy (Oath of
Swords, The War God's Own) to breathtaking space opera
(Path
of the Fury, Empire from the Ashes]
to military science fiction with in-depth
characterization (the celebrated and awesomely popular Honor Harrington
series, War of Honor being the latest installment). Reviewers call
Weber "highly entertaining," (Booklist), "outstanding . .. superb
... excellent" (Wilson Library Bulletin), "remarkable" (Kliatt),
"the best" (Dragon), "worth shouting about" (Philadelphia
Weekly Press), "great" (Locus), and "the best writer around
today" (FosFax). Readers call Weber similar things, but mostly they
call the Baen offices several times a week demanding more from their main
man. Weber and his wife Sharon live in South Carolina.
Illustration by David Mattingly
Cover design by Carol Russo Design
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 Hardcover
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and
events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real
people or incidents is purely coincidental.
First omnibus printing, March 2003
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Weber, David, 1952–
Empire from the ashes / by David Weber.
p. cm.
"Previously published as the separate novels Mutineers' moon, The armageddon inheritance, and Heirs of empire"—Jkt.
ISBN 0-7434-3593-1
1. Space warfare—Fiction. 2. Science fiction, American. 3. War stories, American.
I. Weber, David, 1952– Mutineers' moon.
II. Weber, David, 1952– Armageddon inheritance.
III. Weber, David, 1952– Heirs of empire.
IV. Title: Mutineers' moon.
V. Title: Armageddon inheritance.
VI. Title: Heirs of empire. VII. Title.
PS3573.E217 E47 2003
813'.54—dc21
2002038395
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ISBN: 0-7434-3593-1
Copyright 2003 by David Weber
All rights reserved, including the right to
reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
http://www.baen.com
Production by Windhaven Press
Auburn, NH
Electronic version by WebWrights
http://www.webwrights.com
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