Battlestations Series by David Drake, Katherine Kurtz, Steve Perry, Mike Resnick, S.M. Stirling, Diane Duane, Robert Sheckley, Mercedes Lackey, Scott MacMillan, Esther M. Friesner, Mark Shepherd, Janet E. Morris, Peter Morwood, Jody Lynn Nye, Christopher Stasheff, Judith R. Conly, Barbara Delaplace, John-Don Dugas, S.N. Lewitt

Fragile FortressThe battle for Star Central has just begun. And already the weapon on which the Fleet's victory hangs, the mammoth space station Stephen Hawking, is under constant assault. Outside its heavily shielded hull, a swarm of Ichton crafts hovers menacingly. And within the pseudoplanet's stratified decks, the pressures of combat and close quarters turn the Hawking's overstressed crew into the enemy's most dangerous advantage...

When the Fleet is challenged by an alien armada from the other side of the galaxy, the Fleet constructs the Stephen Hawking, an enormous mobile base for thousands of soldiers and warships... and the overstressed crew prepares for a direct assault by a deadly insectoid race. But the pressures of combat and close quarters have taken their toll, threatening to turn the crew to the enemy's prime advantage.