Trixie and Berry are trapped on an alien space ship. Berry can't move, but he seems to understand what's going on. Trixie is confused, she has no recollection of how they ended up in the dark depths of an alien war craft. She struggles to comprehend even the simplest of principles, struggling to speak, but she is free of her chains, so she is Berry's only hope. They must escape their captors and warn humanity about this sinister threat coming from the galactic core.

Dispatches from the War is a series of four short stories set in the fictional world of the novel Welcome to the Occupied States of America.Extraterrestrial seedpods have landed in the northern hemisphere. The creatures that have emerged are composite beings. They're capable of disassembling and rearranging themselves to mimic their environment. The world is divided into occupied and free states as humanity battles an invasive species from the stars.

After almost dying on Mars, astronaut Liz Mathieson returns to Earth, but not to a hero's welcome. America is in turmoil. The war is over, but the insurgency has just begun. So while life on Mars may have been deadly, at least up there she knew who the enemy was. Along with her, Mathieson has brought the remnants of the artificial intelligence that waged war on two planets. Buried somewhere deep within the cold electronic circuits lies the last vestiges of her dead partner Jianyu. Liz is torn, unsure whether he's somehow still alive in electronic form or just a ploy by an adversary that will go to any length to win. Heartbroken and treated with suspicion, she finds herself caught up in the guerrilla war being waged on Earth, wondering if the AI threat is truly gone, or if it has only just begun.