Charlotte Rose

Captain William Sparhawk flies Earth's single starship on a voyage of exploration. His crew of veteran spacers begins the mission with high hopes and the best of intentions, but the universe has other plans. Instead of space merchants and potential allies, they discover Earth's impending doom. Sparhawk must decide whether to hunt down enemy scouts to keep Earth's new starship a secret or to head home to warn Star Guard of the danger. Either way, he's ignited an interstellar war.

Starship Victory - Earth's ancient, alien spacecraft - has won a smashing victory against the New Men, driving them from "C" Quadrant. On their way home, Captain Maddox and his crew run into a vast machine trapped inside an ion storm. Maddox doesn't know it yet, but the meeting isn't an accident. There's a traitor aboard ship, implementing a secret plan, threatening to destroy everything Star Watch has achieved against the New Men.

In the 25th century, humans have conquered space. The advent of faster-than-light travel has opened up hundreds of habitable planets for colonization, and humans have exploited the virtually limitless space and resources for hundreds of years with impunity. So complacent have they become with the overabundance that armed conflict is a thing of the past, and their machines of war are obsolete and decrepit. What would happen if they were suddenly threatened by a terrifying new enemy?