New Release Books by Jason Schmetzer

OUT FOR BLOOD… Wolf's Dragoons, the most storied and elite mercenary unit in the Inner Sphere, has been utterly shattered for the first time in its centuries-long history. In 3151, most of the Dragoons listened to Marotta Kerensky and followed Alaric Ward to Terra. There, they helped him destroy the Republic of the Sphere and establish the ilClan. Four out of five Dragoons died in the fighting. The survivors were injured, shell-shocked, and finally, gravely insulted by Alaric Ward’s token payment of thirty pieces of silver. In one brutal gesture, the ilKhan did what no other enemy had ever done: He broke Wolf’s Dragoons. The decimated survivors limped off Terra to rendezvous with their remnants that had stayed behind. Colonel Henry “Hack” Kincaid, senior striker officer, is waiting when the Dragoons convoy appears, full of wrecked machines, but depleted of personnel. Kincaid is a man of reputation in the Dragoons. His word carries weight. And he hasn’t been tarnished by Terra. Three regiments and one of his irreplaceable striker battalions have all been ground to dust. All that is left now is duty. And vengeance…

A STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE… Former hauptmann Ronan Carlyle is a man without a nation. After his former commanding officer declared herself governor-general of a reborn Tamar Pact, Ronan, a loyal Steiner officer, led a group of soldiers and techs including his sister, Isobel, back for Garrison for reassignment. But on Garrison, his troubles multiply. The senior Lyran officer brands the 26th Arcturan loyalists traitors and cashiers them, stranding nearly 200 former LCAF soldiers, technicians, and crewmen on a Lyran world with no way off-planet. Forced to scrounge up a way to survive, Ronan and Isobel hatch a plan to get the former LCAF members back to their homeworlds by salvaging ’Mechs. But when a Lyran scout battalion goes AWOL over an off-world mission squashed by their commanding officer, the LCAF is shocked to discover the Arcturan loyalists have built up the largest contingent of combat equipment outside the militia. Ronan’s people need cash. They have skills. And there’s history in his name… Thus, the Gray Death Legion is reborn. First as a way to get funds for his people to leave. But they fight the Lyran unit—winning by use of unorthodox tactics—and discover they don’t want to disband…instead, the reconstituted mercenary unit wants to find its next employer…

TIES THAT BIND… Danai Liao-Centrella is many things: Solaris gladiator; proud military commander; successful diplomat. All of those roles pale beneath perhaps the heaviest responsibility of anyone in the Capellan Confederation: to speak the truth to its ruler, Chancellor Daoshen Liao. He is the undeniable dictator of hundreds of worlds. Mighty armies move at his command. Billions of lives hang on his every decision. Against that, she must speak the truth. And the truth is, the war with House Davion must end. Because there is a greater danger looming: the Republic of the Sphere, hiding behind its impenetrable fortress. When that wall comes down, the Confederation must be ready. It cannot be distracted. Danai will pay whatever price necessary to make Daoshen see that. And that price will be heavy. It will force her to take on a role unlike any other: servant of the people. In the Confederation, the people are the heart of the state. When—not if—the wall falls, Danai and her regiment will be ready. They'll have to be ready, because behind the wall the Republic regiments are finally ready to come out of hiding. On worlds like Elgin, Hall, and Liberty, Republic forces are prepared: well-trained, and armed with weapons the Capellans have never seen. When BattleMechs clash, Danai will have to choose between serving the Chancellor or serving the people.

FIGHT FOR THE FUTURE! Shrapnel: The Official BattleTech Magazine surges onward, waging wars that will decide the fate of the BattleMech-dominated future of the 31st century and beyond! Follow a quest for quick cash that yields unusual Star League relics. Commiserate with an aging MechWarrior convinced he is cursed with the devil's luck-which is about to run out. Listen to the tale of how mercenary commander Ace Darwin obtained his iconic 'Mech-but how much of his story is true? Within these pages, you will visit Terra after the dawn of the ilClan era, venture into the postwar period of the Aurigan Coalition, and travel to the far-flung worlds of the Scorpion Empire in the Deep Periphery. Then you will dive into the intrigue and vice of Solaris VII in the beginning of a new, four-part serial novel. Choose your plan of attack with technical readouts, after-action reports, a deep dive into plasma technology, a treatise on covert-ops poisons, and a look at Free Worlds League politics, along with playable scenarios and more-all loaded into your autocannon by both BattleTech veterans and new voices from the Inner Sphere: Blaine Lee Pardoe Craig A. Reed, Jr. E. Clark Avery Jason Schmetzer James Bixby M. W. Hayden Mark Hill Daniel Isberner Alexander J. Roth Ken' Horner James Kirtley Wunji Lau Eric Salzman Joel Steverson Stephen Toropov

ALL OR NOTHING... On 1 May 3052, twenty-five Galaxies from seven Clans clashed with twelve armies of ComStar’s Com Guards on the pastoral planet of Tukayyid. For twenty-one days, one of the largest campaigns in BattleMech warfare unfolded to decide the fate of the Inner Sphere. The Battle of Tukayyid is one of BattleTech’s most pivotal conflicts. Now, explore this crucial campaign through eight different points of view—from the enigmatic ComStar, whose relatively untested forces are the Inner Sphere’s last defense against the seemingly unstoppable Clans, to each Clan, as their leaders and MechWarriors attempt to achieve victory on their own terms. The fate of the Inner Sphere hangs in the balance…and it all comes down to one planet… Featuring stories by: Jason Schmetzer Michael J. Ciaravella Randall N. Bills Blaine Lee Pardoe Steven Mohan, Jr. Bryan Young Chris Hussey Joel Steverson

STRENGTH VS. HONOR For more than a decade, the Republic of the Sphere's army hid in silence behind the mysterious, impregnable Wall of Fortress Republic. But now the Wall has come down, and Paladin Max Ergen, commander of Operation Eruptio, has his sights set on an invaluable prize. His target: Dieron, a Draconis Combine military district capital, a former Republic world harboring secrets from past wars. His troops have spent years training in isolation behind the Wall, and they are hungry for battle, ready to remind the Inner Sphere that the wounded Republic is still a force to be reckoned with. But Dieron is also the fortress of Warlord Kambei Okamoto, one of the Combine's top military officials, and he and his Dieron Regulars are committed to holding the line and defending their home against Republic aggression, no matter the cost. Although the Republic may have surprise and numbers on their side, the Combine troops boast the strength of an impregnable redoubt-and the keen edge of their own unimpeachable honor. And when these two forces clash, the battle for Dieron will be a titanic one indeed...

THEIR MISSION: ACQUIRE BATTLEMECH PLANS, NO MATTER THE COST... There are three ways to accomplish a difficult objective: Be first. Be smart. Or cheat. The Intelligence Directorate of the Capellan Confederation, otherwise known as the Maskirovka, is well-versed in all three. But when the first two methods do not achieve the desired results, they have no problem resorting to the last one. And when the covert team gains the plans they are willing to die for, that resolve will be tested to the limit as they try to escape the Free Worlds League planet they have infiltrated, matching wits with one of the most feared intelligence officers the FWL has to offer...

FIVE RUNNERS. ONE JOB. And a Whole Lot of Trouble... It should have been a simple walk in the corp. Stroll into a mid-level corporation disguised as a nameless mid-level manager in a suit, deliver an unknown data package to an isolated network, and stroll out again. But nothing is ever simple in the shadows. Now five shadowrunners are on the run themselves. Framed by their employer, the mysterious Mr. Johnson, and marked for termination by every hired cop, corp security man, and shadowrunner in Seattle, the team must find out who set them up, why they did it, and figure out how to deliver their payback—without getting killed in the process. The Complete Frame Job is the collected six-novella story set in the gritty, dark future, magic-and-machine world of Shadowrun.

ON THE HUNT AGAIN… It is the Dark Age—3139—and the famed mercenary regiments of Wolf’s Dragoons have returned to the employ of House Kurita after a century of bitter enmity. Somehow, mercenaries and Kuritans must find a way to work together in a combined invasion of the Dragon’s oldest enemy, House Davion. Thrust into the middle of this new conflict, Colonel Henry Kincaid is surprised by the commonalities—duty, honor, expediency—the Wolves and Combine forces share. But as the Wolves’ lightning tactics and unstoppable drive brings world after Davion world under the Dragon’s banner, old hatreds arise anew, and with them come insidious plots engineered to cause the mercenaries’ downfall. Throughout the campaign, Colonel Kincaid struggles to rectify what he thought he had always known about the Kuritans with the truth he discovers while actually working with them. But when his forces are trapped on a Davion world with no way to escape and the regiments of House Davion closing in, can he pull another bit of genius from his hat, or will the battalions of Wolf’s Dragoons be destroyed?

OUTMATCHED AT EVERY TURN... It is 3072, and holy Jihad rages in the Inner Sphere. Soon after they launched their war in 3067, the mystical Word of Blake sprung out from their base on Terra and claimed dozens of worlds, creating a Word of Blake Protectorate. While many of those worlds joined voluntarily, some others hosted resistance movements. On one such world, Ruchbah, the resistance hired mercenary help. Captain Jeremiah Youngblood and his Crescent Hawks have an enviable legacy to live up to. Not only are they trying to find their own place in the Inner Sphere, outside of the deep shadows cast by the elite Kell Hounds, but some still remember another Jeremiah Youngblood and another group of Crescent Hawks. Can the new live up to the reputation of the old? Can they survive, almost alone on a hostile world where the Word of Blake holds almost every advantage?

MASTERS OF WAR... Since their appearance in the Inner Sphere in 3005, the mercenary regiments known as Wolf’s Dragoons have proven themselves the masters of the battlefield, the equal of any regiment of any of the five warring Successor States. Now under contract to House Marik’s Free Worlds League, the Dragoons have undertaken their most daring mission yet: an attack on House Steiner’s impregnable Hesperus II BattleMech factories. Success on Hesperus will make the Dragoons into living legends… but few enemies have survived House Steiner’s fanatical defenses. The Steiners know how important the ancient BattleMech factories are to their nation—and not even the fearsome reputation of Wolf’s Dragoons will make them blink.

ALL OR NOTHING... It is 3071, and holy Jihad rages in the Inner Sphere. Safe on worlds claimed two decades earlier, Clan Jade Falcon watches its enemies tear themselves apart. But a new threat is bearing down on the Falcons. Clan Ice Hellion, another of Kerensky's Clans, has traveled the winding Exodus Road to attack its warrior brethren—for while the Clans hunger to conquer the Inner Sphere, they are warriors, and they have little qualm warring amongst themselves for advantage. Khan Connor Rood of the Ice Hellions knows his Clan is taking a desperate risk. Victory over the Jade Falcons will give the Hellions a place in the Inner Sphere, new worlds to conquer and exploit. It will place them among those rarified Clans who are not trapped in the distant Clan homeworlds. It is a bold plan. It could easily fail. For the Jade Falcons have been warned of the Ice Hellions' approach, and powerful and veteran Jade Falcon BattleMechs are turning to meet them. Can Rood and his Hellions defeat the forewarned Falcons? With Jihad raging in front of them and genocidal wars of reaving consuming the Clan homeworlds behind them, can the Hellions survive?

PART FIVE OF THE ORIGINAL SHADOWRUN SIXTH WORLD EDITION NOVELLA SERIES! FIVE RUNNERS. ONE JOB. AND A WHOLE LOT OF TROUBLE... After being double-crossed by one of the largest megacorps in the Sixth World, the shadowrunner team sets their own plans in motion: clear their names and deliver payback with a vengeance. While everyone else is running around in the real world, the team’s resident decker, Zipfile, takes to the Matrix to find out all she can about who set them up and who that Johnson was working for. If she can get those answers, they’ll be one step closer getting their sweet revenge. But the infinite pixels of the Matrix only lead to more questions at first, until the resourceful dwarf approaches their problem from a new angle…that nearly gets her and another team member killed. Before their run is over, Zipfile uncovers even more danger in the neon sprawl of the Matrix…and those bits and bytes of data could prove more deadly than anything in the meat world…

WELCOME TO THE YEAR 2072… …And a world unlike anything you’ve ever imagined. A world where magic and machines exist side-by-side. Where cybernetics can replace organs or entire limbs with ease, and arcane spells can make the impossible happen. Where the Matrix has become an artificial world of its own, filled with all kinds of pleasure, treasure, and trouble. Where dwarves, elves, orks, and trolls walk alongside humans every day. Some work for megacorporations whose invisible tentacles wrap around every aspect of modern life. Others choose a much less legal career, doing whatever dirty work the corp executives need done—for a price. WELCOME TO SHADOWRUN Featuring fifteen new stories about the men and women who make their living in the shadows of the Sixth World, Spells and Chrome takes you into the dark and dirty streets of a bleak future. Whether risking their lives to execute a mission for an employer who might be planning to double-cross them anyway, or just doing whatever they need to do to survive another day, shadowrunners use everything they’ve got—cyberware, spells, or a very big gun—to get the job done.

DEATH STALKS THE BATTLEFIELD... It is the year 3027, and the Inner Sphere is at war. Centuries of near-constant warfare have left the feudal realms exhausted and near collapse, but none will surrender. National armies clash on hundreds of worlds, and hired proxies—mercenaries—fight on countless more. Mighty MechWarriors lead their BattleMechs like the ancient knights of old, but they are not the only soldiers on these brutal battlefields. Fusion-powered tanks, heavily armored and nearly as powerful as ’Mechs, roam the battlefields, and few are as deadly as the ones in Halsten’s Brigade, in the service of House Steiner’s Lyran Commonwealth. Even fewer are as deadly as tank gunner Private Frederick “Sniper” Jones, the man even MechWarriors fear. Put him in a Schrek PPC Carrier, point him at the enemy, and he'll take them down. Leaving him with nothing but dreams of how things could have gone wrong, until the next enemy comes along... Sniper collects two previously-published short stories: "Sniper" and "Panzer."

Short stories, memory fragments, and other relics set in the universe of the Apocrypha Adventure Card Game from Lone Shark Games.