The Baddies

He joined the enemy to take them down from the inside. It’s not going great.

The Imperium of Greater Scorpius is brutal, relentless, and bent on galactic conquest. Their massive interstellar army, the Scorpion Horde, uses overwhelming force, bureaucratic ruthlessness, and a complete disregard for ergonomics.

Ogden “OK” Kevitch meant to join the rebellion and fight Imperial tyranny. Really, he did. But due to some bad decisions and misunderstandings, he joined the Imperial Horde instead. Assigned to food service, he’s slinging tuber-tots in the mess hall of a Scorpion Horde battle cruiser.

Still a rebel at heart (but an engineer by nature), OK tries to sabotage the Horde from underneath a hairnet. Unfortunately, his efforts have a tendency to backfire—and accidentally make things better for the Horde and worse for the rebellion.

His latest scheme involves smuggling out the stolen brain of a dead rebel scientist. It’s risky, it’s stupid, and it just might be exactly what the Horde wants.

The Baddies is a darkly satirical military science fiction novel about failure, rebellion, and the quiet horror of being employee-of-the-month for the bad guys.

The Baddies and its companion novel, Hell Yeah! We’re the Baddies, explore the light side of the dark side—where one hapless food tech and one disgraced intelligence officer try to outmaneuver an empire built on cruelty, incompetence, and performance reviews. Together, they tell two distinct stories wrapped around the same set of events: a Rashomon-style exploration of different perspectives inside the Scorpion Imperium.