Maxima Library

As the world moves into the next millennium, the United States finds itself at the forefront of this new age, policing not only its own shores but the rest of the world as well. And spearheading this overwatch are the men and women of America's armed forces, the "troops on the wall," who will go anywhere, anytime, and do whatever it takes to protect not only our nation but the rest of the free world.

Now, for the first time, Combat brings the best military-fiction authors together to reveal how war will be fought in the twenty-first century. From the down and dirty "ground-pounders" of the U.S. Armored Cavalry to the new frontiers of warfare, including outer space and the Internet, ten authors whose novels define the military-fiction genre have written all-new short stories about the men and women willing to put their lives on the line for freedom:

Larry Bond takes us into the wild frontier of space warfare, where American soldiers fight a dangerous zero-gee battle with a tenacious enemy that threatens every free nation on Earth.

Dale Brown lets us inside a world that few people see, that of a military promotion board, and shows us how the fate of an EB-52 Megafortress pilot's career can depend on a man he's never met, even as the pilot takes on the newest threat to American forces in the Persian Gulf-a Russian stealth bomber.

James Cobb finds a lone U.S. Armored Cavalry scout unit that is the only military force standing between a defenseless African nation and an aggressive Algerian recon division.

Stephen Coonts tells of the unlikely partnership between an ex-Marine sniper and a female military pilot who team up to kill the terrorists who murdered her parents. But, out in the Libyan desert, all is not as it seems, and these two must use their skills just to stay alive.

Harold W. Coyle reports in from the front lines of the information war, where cyberpunks are recruited by the U.S. Army to combat the growing swarm of hackers and their shadowy masters who orchestrate their brand of online terrorism around the world.

David Hagberg brings us another Kirk McGarvey adventure, in which the C.I.A. director becomes entangled in the rising tensions between China and Taiwan. When a revolutionary leader is rescued from a Chinese prison, the Chinese government pushes the United States to the brink of war, and McGarvey has to make a choice with the fate of the world hanging in the balance.

Dean Ing reveals a scenario that could have been torn right from today's headlines. In Oakland, a private investigator teams up with a bounty hunter and F.B.I. agent to find a missing marine engineer. What they uncover is the shadow of terrorism looming over America and a conspiracy that threatens thousands of innocent lives.

Ralph Peters takes us to the war-torn Balkan states, where a U.S. Army observer sent to keep an eye on the civil war is taken on a guided tour of the country at gunpoint. Captured by the very people he is there to monitor, he learns just how far people will go for their idea of freedom.

R.J. Pineiro takes us to the far reaches of space, where a lone terrorist holds the world hostage from a nuclear missle-equipped platform. To stop him, a pilot agrees to a suicidal flight into the path of an orbital laser with enough power to incinerate her space shuttle.

Barrett Tillman takes us to the skies with a group of retired fighter jocks brought back for one last mission-battling enemy jets over the skies of sunny California.

When an unforeseen asteroid strikes Siberia with the force of a thousand Hiroshimas, it triggers Dead Hand, the ultimate defense mechanism developed by the Soviets at the height of the Cold War.

The missiles are pointing at the United States and its European allies, and ultra-nationalist General Likatchev is willing to use them as blackmail to topple the government in Moscow and return Russia to her status as world power.

When Russia responds to world queries with cold silence, a NATO special operations unit is dropped into Siberia. Trapped in a region ravaged by freezing snow and the hellish aftermath of the asteroid impact, the NATO forces are racing against time to track down Likatchev and dismantle Dead Hand before a global holocaust is unleashed.

This revised and updated edition of the classic Cold War novel Team Yankee reminds us once again might have occurred had the United States and its Allies taken on the Russians in Europe, had cooler geopolitical heads not prevailed. For 45 years after World War II, East and West stood on the brink of war. When Nazi Germany was destroyed, it was evident that Russian tank armies had become supreme in Europe, but only in counterpart to US air power. In 1945 US and UK bombers sent a signal to the advancing Russians at Dresden to beware of what the Allies could do. Likewise when the Russians overran Berlin they sent a signal to the Allies what their land armies could accomplish. Thankfully the tense standoff continued on either side of the Iron Curtain for nearly half a century. During those years, however, the Allies beefed up their ground capability, while the Soviets increased their air capability, even as the new jet and missile age began (thanks much to captured German scientists on both sides). The focal point of conflict remained central Germany — specifically the flat plains of the Fulda Gap — through which the Russians could pour all the way to the Channel if the Allies proved unprepared (or unable) to stop them.

Team Yankee posits a conflict that never happened, but which very well might have, and for which both sides prepared for decades. This former New York Times bestseller by Harold Coyle, now revised and expanded, presents a glimpse of what it would have been like for the Allied soldiers who would have had to meet a relentless onslaught of Soviet and Warsaw Pact divisions. It takes the view of a US tank commander, who is vastly outnumbered during the initial onslaught, as the Russians pull out all the cards learned in their successful war against Germany. Meantime Western Europe has to speculate behind its thin screen of armor whether the New World can once again assemble its main forces — or willpower — to rescue the bastions of democracy in time.