Dayton Ward

OK
About Dayton Ward
If you’re reading this, then chances are you’ve read one of my books or are considering doing so. Or, maybe you just clicked on a link by mistake while on your way to something more interesting.
Doesn’t matter. Welcome!
So…about me. Yeah…well, you see, it’s like this: Until recently, I was a software developer and analyst, having become a slave to Corporate America after spending eleven years in the U.S. Marine Corps. Why did I join the military? Pretty simple, really. I’d gotten tired of people telling me what to do all the time, and was looking for a change.
Whoops.
In truth, I joined for a handful of different reasons, from carrying on a family tradition to wanting a challenge unlike anything else I’d faced to that point to simpler stuff like just wanting to see the world. I’m proud of my time spent in uniform. I gave Uncle Sam eleven years, and he gave me a long list of skills and experiences that have continued to serve me to this day. I think I got the better end of that deal by a fairly wide margin.
In September 2014, I said goodbye to my day job and embarked on a bold new journey as a full-time writer.
Though I’ve written a bunch of short stories and novels on my own, I’ve written a lot more in collaboration with my friend and fellow author, Kevin Dilmore. What types of stories do I like to write? Pretty much the same kind I like to read: Engaging plots with interesting characters. Whether I actually succeed in crafting stories which meet those criteria is for you to decide.
I write content for magazines and web sites as the opportunities arise. You’ll find my stuff in Star Trek Magazine and on sites like Tor.com and StarTrek.com. I’m also a regular contributor to a “writer’s blog” called “Novel Spaces,” with an eye toward providing insight and advice on various writing topics. There are several contributors to the site, representing a broad spectrum of genres and writing backgrounds. Go give it a look; it’s a nice place to hang out.
Though I was born and raised in Tampa, Florida, fate and circumstances have seen to it that my family and I now call Kansas City home. My wife spends a great deal of time and effort as a volunteer K-9 handler and search & rescue tech, training along with one of our dogs in order to assist law enforcement when searching for missing persons. As you can imagine, there are a few story ideas to be gleaned from that.
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Blog post“What we’re dealin’ with here is a complete lack of respect for the law.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. May 1977 is a landmark month in movie history, what with bringing to us the first Star Wars film and with it the birth of the “Star Wars franchise.” However, this same month also brought to us another … Continue reading East Bound and Down: 45 years of truckin’ with Smokey and the Bandit!Yesterday Read more
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Blog postA long time ago, in a theater far, far away…. I was just shy of my 10th birthday in the summer of 1977, when some friends and I went to see Star Wars because out of the movies playing at my neighborhood 4-screen theater, it looked the most interesting. Typical boy stuff, right? Just hang out in a darkened … Continue reading Happy 45th Birthday, Star Wars!3 days ago Read more
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Blog postThanks to the wonder that is scheduled posting here on the blog thing, by the time you read this my hetero life mate Kevin and I will be on our way to Denver for the annual StarFest Convention! (Be sure to click on the link and check out the guest line-up. Terry Farrel. Michelle Hurd. Brent … Continue reading StarFest, here we come!2 weeks ago Read more
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Blog post“Private Owens! Was the sand flea you killed male or female?” “Male, sir!” “Then this ain’t it. Keep looking.” Technical Sergeant Jim Moore is a drill instructor at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in Parris Island, South Carolina. Every 12 weeks, he’s handed a new collection of lads (mostly) just out of high school, and … Continue reading Happy 65th Anniversary to The D.I.!3 weeks ago Read more
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Blog postWell, here I go…trying to resurrect yet another “irregularly recurring” blog feature that fell by the wayside while I was working on Other Things. For those who’ve missed previous installments, “Tuesday Trekkin’” is pretty much just another excuse for me to babble about some aspect of Star Trek fandom. These evolutions often involve me yammering on about … Continue reading Tuesday Trekkin’: “The Ages of Trek.”3 weeks ago Read more
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Blog postMan. It’s been a minute since the last time I did one of these. Let’s just say February and March were….busy. Then April came along and I got deep enough into the month that a wrap-up post for March might as well wait until May showed up, which it has! So, even though the post … Continue reading April writing wrap-up.3 weeks ago Read more
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Blog postSo, things have been eventful here at stately Ward Manor in recent days. On the writing front, was it only a few short weeks ago that I finished revisions to my latest novel manuscript before getting on a plane to the Star Trek Mission Chicago convention? For the first time, I was attending a show … Continue reading Playing in different sandboxes.4 weeks ago Read more
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Blog postToday’s the big day, y’all! The largest pop culture convention in the Kansas City region is launching today, promising three epic days of comics, games, cosplay, creators and stars from TV and film, authors and artists, and just about anything you can think of that’s geeky and cool. For more than 20 years, Planet Comicon … Continue reading Planet Comicon 2022 is here!1 month ago Read more
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Blog postReturn to the thrilling paradise of Jurassic World with this deluxe cookbook featuring recipes served throughout the park! Take a taste of Isla Nublar home with you with this exclusive cookbook featuring the most popular dishes, drinks, and desserts of Jurassic World. Organized according to the park’s various regions and territories — Gyrosphere Valley, T. … Continue reading Jurassic World: The Official Cookbook1 month ago Read more
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Blog postOkay, so here we go again, attempting to get back to something resembling “irregularly recurring.” For those new to these parts, “Tuesday Trekkin’” is essentially an excuse for me to yammer on a bit about some facet of Star Trek fandom. These exercises usually involve some fondly remembered bit of funky merchandise, anniversaries or other “milestones” … Continue reading Tuesday Trekkin’: Old-school Star Trek computer games!2 months ago Read more
Titles By Dayton Ward
Following the resolution of the fertility crisis that nearly caused their extinction, the Andorian people now stand ready to rejoin the United Federation of Planets. The return of one of its founding member worlds is viewed by many as the first hopeful step beyond the uncertainty and tragedy that have overshadowed recent events in the Alpha Quadrant. But as the Federation looks to the future and the special election to name President Bacco’s permanent successor, time is running out to apprehend those responsible for the respected leader’s brutal assassination. Even as elements of the Typhon Pact are implicated for the murder, Admiral William Riker holds key knowledge of the true assassins—a revelation that could threaten the fragile Federation-Cardassian alliance.
Questions and concerns also continue to swell around Bacco’s interim successor, Ishan Anjar, who uses the recent bloodshed to further a belligerent, hawkish political agenda against the Typhon Pact. With the election looming, Riker dispatches his closest friend, Captain Jean-Luc Picard, in a desperate attempt to uncover the truth. But as Picard and the Enterprise crew pursue the few remaining clues, Riker must act on growing suspicions that someone within Ishan’s inner circle has been in league with the assassins from the very beginning...
STARFLEET’S FINEST FACES A CHALLENGE UNLIKE ANY OTHER
TOMORROW IS DOOMED
Time is coming apart. Countless alternate and parallel realities are under attack, weakening and collapsing from relentless onslaught. If left unchecked, the universe faces an unstoppable descent toward entropy.
WANDERER, ORACLE, ALLY
Scarred and broken after decades spent tracking this escalating temporal disaster, while battling the nameless enemy responsible for it, an old friend seeks assistance from Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the Starship Enterprise. The apocalypse may originate from their future, but might the cause lie in their past?
EVERYTHING THAT WILL BE
Identifying their adversary is but the first step toward defeating them, but early triumphs come with dreadful costs. What will the price be to achieve final victory, and how will that success be measured in futures as yet undefined?
™, ®, & © 2021 CBS Studios, Inc. STAR TREK and related marks and logos are trademarks of CBS Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
- DEVIL DOGS by Tim Lebbon
- STONEWALL'S LAST STAND by Jeremy Robinson
- REMATCH by Steve Perry
- MAY BLOOD PAVE MY WAY HOME by Weston Ochse
- STORM BLOOD by Peter J. Wacks and David Boop
- LAST REPORT FROM THE KSS PSYCHOPOMP by Jennifer Brozek
- SKELD'S KEEP by S. D. Perry
- INDIGENOUS SPECIES by Kevin J. Anderson
- BLOOD AND SAND by Mira Grant
- TIN WARRIORS by John Shirley
- THREE SPARKS by Larry Correia
- THE PILOT by Andrew Mayne
- BUFFALO JUMP by Wendy N. Wagner
- DRUG WAR by Bryan Thomas Schmidt and Holly Roberds
- RECON by Dayton Ward
- GAMEWORLD by Jonathan Maberry
Operation Vanguard has risked countless lives and sacrificed entire worlds to unlock the secrets of the Shedai, an extinct alien civilization whose technology can shape the future of the galaxy. Now, Starfleet’s efforts have roused the vengeful Shedai from their aeons of slumber.
As the Taurus Reach erupts with violence, hundreds of light-years away, Ambassador Jetanien and his counterparts from the Klingon and Romulan empires struggle to avert war by any means necessary. But Jetanien discovers their mission may have been designed to fail all along.
Meanwhile, living in exile on an Orion ship is the one man who can help Starfleet find an ancient weapon that can stop the Shedai: Vanguard’s former commanding officer, Diego Reyes.
Section 31, the covert organization which has operated without accountability in the shadows for more than two centuries, has been exposed. Throughout the Federation, the rogue group’s agents and leaders are being taken into custody as the sheer scope of its misdeeds comes to light. Now Starfleet Command must decide the consequences for numerous officers caught up in the scandal—including Admirals William Ross, Edward Jellico, Alynna Nechayev, and Captain Jean-Luc Picard who, along with many others, are implicated in the forced removal of a Federation president.
Meanwhile, deep in the distant, unexplored region of space known as the Odyssean Pass, Picard and the crew of the Starship Enterprise must put aside personal feelings and political concerns as they investigate a massive mysterious spacecraft. Adrift for centuries in the void, the ship is vital to the survival of an endangered civilization which has spent generations searching for a world to sustain what remains of its people. Complicating matters is a band of marauders who have their own designs on the ancient ship, with only the Enterprise standing in their way....
FOREWORD
Bret and Jeanni Smith
INTRODUCTION
Paul Campion
ALIEN PARASITES FROM OUTER SPACE
Warren Hammond
RETURN OF THE ALIEN PARASITES FROM OUTER SPACE
Angie Hodapp
NEGATIVE CREEP
Alvaro Zinos-Amaro
HELLULOID
Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore
RISE, YE VERMIN!
Betty Rocksteady
THE CRONENBERG CONCERTO
Keith Ferrell
CREATURE FEATURE
Gary Jonas
INVISIBLE
Mario Acevedo
SCREEN HAUNT
Orrin Grey
THE DEVIL'S REEL
Sean Eads and Joshua Viola
ON THE ROCKS
K. Nicole Davis
COMING ATTRACTIONS
Stephen Graham Jones
LATE SLEEPERS
Steve Rasnic Tem
SPECIAL MAKEUP
Kevin J. Anderson
Following the dramatic events as chronicled in Vanguard: Storming Heaven, the U.S.S. Enterprise and other starships that participated in the final battle in the Taurus Reach have been remanded to a remote starbase. While evacuees from the station are processed and the ships repaired, restocked, and re-staffed as needed, Captain James T. Kirk is ordered to report to Admiral Heihachiro Nogura, Starbase 47’s second and final commanding officer. Through flashbacks intercut with the ongoing conversation between Kirk and Nogura, the Enterprise’s involvement in the last days of Operation Vanguard—and the conflict between Starfleet and Tholian forces at Starbase 47—is now told from the perspective of Kirk and his crew.
More than two centuries ago, the Dokaalan sent an unmanned probe into the void, bearing a distress call for anyone who could save their doomed world. But the message reached Federation space too late to save the planet or its people.
Or so it was believed...
Generations later, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-E are stunned to discover the last of the Dokaalan—now only a colony fighting to stay alive in a decrepit asteroid mining complex. Although their home planet was destroyed long ago, the survivors hope to someday transform a nearby planet into a new home for their people. But bitter divisions exist among the Dokaalan, sowing the seeds of sabotage and terrorism—and placing Picard and the Enterprise in the middle of an escalating crisis that can only lead to total destruction!
Witness the dawn of Starbase 47, as Ambassador Jetanien faces choices that will shape the future of Operation Vanguard. Follow journalist Tim Pennington as he reaches a crossroads in his search for the truth. See how the crises on two colonies transform the lives of Diego Reyes and Rana Desai. And travel with Cervantes Quinn to a deadly confrontation that will change everything—all in one unforgettable Star Trek collection.
It is a new age of exploration, and the U.S.S. Enterprise is dispatched to “the Odyssean Pass,” a region charted only by unmanned probes and believed to contain numerous inhabited worlds. Approaching a star system with two such planets, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his crew find a massive alien vessel, drifting in interstellar space for decades. Sensors detect life aboard the derelict—aliens held in suspended animation. Thought to be an immense sleeper ship, the vessel actually is a weapon capable of destroying entire worlds...the final gambit in a war that has raged for generations across the nearby system. Captain Picard is now caught in the middle of this conflict and attempts to mediate, as both sides want this doomsday weapon…which was sent from the future with the sole purpose of ending the interplanetary war before it even began!
The Taurus Reach: a remote interstellar expanse that holds a very old and potentially cataclysmic secret, the truth of which is feared by the Tholians, coveted by the Klingons, and dubiously guarded by the Federation. At the center of this intrigue is Vanguard, a Federation starbase populated by an eclectic mix of Starfleet officers and civilians, whose lives are forever altered as they explore the layers of mystery surrounding the Reach and steadily peel them away...one after another.
In the aftermath of Harbinger, Commodore Diego Reyes commands Vanguard while waging an intensely personal struggle, tasked to uncover the true significance of the Taurus Reach while simultaneously concealing that mission from his fellow officers—and even his closest friends. As the Daedalus-class U.S.S. Lovell brings some of Starfleet's keenest technical minds to help, the U.S.S. Endeavour makes a find that could shed further light on the enigmatic meta-genome that has captured the Federation's interest—if its crew survives the discovery...
Deep within the Taurus Reach, an ancient and powerful alien mind has awakened prematurely from aeons of hibernation, alerted to the upstart civilizations now daring to encroach upon the worlds in her care. With the stakes for all sides escalating rapidly, the alien lashes out with deadly force against the interlopers, propelling the Vanguard crew on a desperate race to understand the nature of the attacker, and to prevent the Taurus Reach from becoming a war zone.
With tensions mounting between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, Ambassador Jetanien works frantically on Starbase Vanguard to halt the escalation toward war. Commodore Diego Reyes, the station's former commander, awaits trial for treason, while the shattered mind of his intelligence officer, T'Prynn, becomes the battlefield in a fight for her very life.
But even as matters deteriorate, the discoveries made in the Taurus Reach have captured the imagination of one of the Federation's most promising scientific minds: Dr. Carol Marcus believes she is close to solving a puzzle that will transform her life's work. Meanwhile, an unexpected defection brings a new perspective to the investigation, and Vanguard's Lieutenant Ming Xiong is confronted with an artifact that could be the key to decoding the Taurus Meta-Genome.
But with Operation Vanguard teetering between its greatest breakthrough and a conflict that could engulf two quadrants, its future may depend on the man Starfleet has selected to replace Reyes as base commander: Admiral Heihachiro Nogura.
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