A woman too dangerous to kill.
A man too principled to leave her behind.
Five years after disgraced war hero Wraith disappeared into a black-site prison, the government suddenly needs her again.
Major Kael Veyne is sent to bring her back.
Unfortunately, he’s also been made her Tether.
If he dies, she dies.
And that is only the beginning.
Welcome to the Inbetween
The Inbetween Archives is a character-driven space opera about dangerous people, complicated loyalties, found family and the things waiting in the dark between stars.
There are wars.
There are conspiracies.
There are ancient forces with opinions.
There are several people who should absolutely not be trusted with knives.
Mostly, though, there is a family that keeps finding one another despite death, distance, betrayal and the occasional interdimensional catastrophe.
If you like your science fiction with morally gray characters, emotional damage, dark humour, cosmic weirdness and people making terrible decisions for excellent reasons, you may have found your next problem.
Welcome.
We’re sorry.
Mostly.
Start here
Hard Parole
(Book One of the Inbetween Archives)
Wraith has spent almost five years alone in a cell.
Then Major Kael Veyne opens the door and tells her she’s a patriot again.
Humanity needs her ability to navigate the deadly space between reality.
Kael needs her to find the scattered remnants of Ghost Command.
And Wraith needs to decide whether freedom is worth accepting another leash.
The first book is free.
Because we believe you should be allowed to discover exactly what kind of terrible decision this is before money changes hands.
GET HARD PAROLE EBOOK AND BONUS CONTENT FREE
No blood oath required.
Email address, yes. Blood oath, optional.
Or just read online now.
You may enjoy the Archives if you like…
Found family with knives
They love one another.
This is not always reassuring.
Morally gray protagonists
Nobody here is entirely clean.
Several of them would be offended if you suggested otherwise.
Government conspiracies
Strategic Intelligence would like it noted that all allegations are unsubstantiated.
Strategic Intelligence is lying.
Dark humour
Sometimes the options are laugh or scream.
Ghost Command is remarkably efficient and can usually manage both.
Complicated relationships
Love, loyalty, sex, friendship, obsession, devotion and the occasional psychic boundary issue.
Healthy communication remains a work in progress.
Cosmic weirdness
The Void is not a metaphor.
This will become important.
The Main Archives
Hard Parole
Book One
A war criminal gets out of prison.
The Major holding her leash has absolutely no idea what he has just unleashed.
Conditional Release
Book Two
The mission is over.
The consequences are not.
Old ghosts are returning, an ancient cult is paying attention, and something followed Kael home from the Void.
Flight Risk
Book Three
Six months later, Ghost Command is finally back together.
All six of them.
For the first time since the War.
Unfortunately, somebody has decided their past makes excellent propaganda—and the universe has started asking much bigger questions.
New reader? You do not need to work this out yourself.
Wait. There’s a cult?
Technically.
Probably.
It depends who you ask.
The books are only part of The Inbetween Archives.
Once you’re inside, you’ll find classified SID dossiers, intercepted communications, Cult transmissions, character files, questionable poetry and various documents that definitely should not have survived the official record.
Some are spoiler-free.
Others require higher clearance.
A few probably require legal representation.
Already reading the series?
Enter according to your clearance level.
SID reminds all personnel that unauthorized access to classified material is prohibited.
Shade reminds all personnel that rules are merely suggestions with uniforms.
Meet Ghost Command
They were soldiers once.
Then Ghosts.
Eventually, somehow, family.
Wraith
Pilot. Navigator. War criminal. Generally correct about the stabbing.
Shade
Chaos specialist. Void Whisperer. Cult leader by accident. Cult leader on purpose if it annoys Geist.
Geist
Spymaster. Strategist. Holder of approximately everyone’s secrets.
Spirit
Recon. Tracker. Frequently overlooked right up until the moment that becomes somebody else’s problem.
Phantom
Sniper. Scout. Very large man attempting to be the sensible one.
Spook
Combat specialist. Mercenary. Solves emotional problems with violence wherever possible.
They survived the War.
Surviving one another has required considerably more effort.
Beyond the main series
Ghost Formation
Before they were ghosts, they were six young soldiers who should never have survived long enough to become a family.
The prequel tells the story of how Ghost Command began.
Do not worry: you do not need to read it first.
In fact, we recommend that you meet them in Hard Parole before discovering exactly how much they lost.
It hurts better that way.
Incoming transmission
The Archives are still growing.
New books are coming.
Old secrets are surfacing.
Characters continue to make decisions AJ specifically asked them not to make.
Join the Archives and get:
- the downloadable edition of Hard Parole
- book and release news
- classified extras and Archive fragments
- character chaos
- occasional behind-the-scenes notes from AJ
- increasingly questionable communications from Shade
No daily spam.
No endless sequence of BUY MY BOOK emails.
And no requirement to understand what the hell the Void is before subscribing.
That would be unreasonable.
Most of us don’t.
Unsubscribe whenever you like.
Leaving the Cult is technically permitted.
About AJ Pryor
The person nominally responsible
AJ Pryor is a science-fiction author who writes character-driven stories about found family, morally complicated people, dangerous loyalties and what happens when humanity encounters something much stranger than itself.
She created The Inbetween Archives.
Everything that happened after that is increasingly difficult to prove.
Already one of us?
You’ve read the books.
You know who Shade is.
Possibly you have opinions about Kael.
You understand why the words “Ghost Command reunion” carry emotional consequences.
You do not need the sales pitch.
You need the classified material.
One final warning
There is a woman in a cell.
There is a Major standing outside it.
He knows exactly how dangerous she is.
He opens the door anyway.
Five minutes later, he tells her that if he dies, she dies too.
This is arguably where everything begins to go wrong.
Would you like to see how much worse it gets?
Hard Parole is free.
Welcome to The Inbetween Archives.
Proceed at your own risk.