Space First Contact

Captain Mead sold his banking gig for space raising his children between Earth and Pluto for over a decade. With all but one of them moved on, and with business on the upswing, it's time to hire. When an overqualified young man lands on his ramp eager for work, he ignores the shady history on his resume, especially since his past has its own flaws. After a boring decade of living as a trading merchant, the Sol System heats up in more ways than one.

David was just a normal person living a normal life until he encountered Helen, an advanced sentient spaceship with technologies millions of years ahead of humanity. Helen selects David to become her human companion to help her learn more about the human race. But when David accepts, he becomes enthralled by the limitless power now available to him through Helen, and begins to change the world in ways unimaginable.

With Alexis Cromwell shot in the back by her XO and the fleet in ruins, the Humans have run back to New Warsaw to lick their wounds, but the Merc Guild now knows the location of their hidden base, and they are in hot pursuit. Led by the New Era, a dreadnought built for the sole purpose of destroying humanity, they are an unstoppable force.

For Colonel Mulbah Luo and the Kakata Korps, their initial contracts with the Mercenary Guild had them defending Earth. Honest work, they were led to believe, keeping the citizens of Earth safe from alien pacification in their own way. As the occupation continues, however, their eyes are opened to the fact that the hand gripping their throat is slowly tightening.

Peacemakers. The Galactic Union’s most capable enforcers and resolute negotiators, their name alone elicits fear and awe among the Union’s citizenry. When necessary, the Peacemaker Guild deputizes citizens to carry out special missions of great difficulty and danger. The only person ever to land a Combat Assault System, Personal (CASPer) from high-altitude free fall without a parachute, Tara Mason’s career as a mercenary showed promise, but it crumbled under poor choices and even worse leadership

When Todd’s critically damaged ship dropped out of hyperspace near the human colony world of Azure, he had no memory of his past. He didn’t know who he was, or even what he was, and the humans didn’t either. That didn’t stop the colonists of Azure - they took him in, anyway...even though they didn’t understand how he could do some of the things he could do. Todd and his descendants consider themselves human - eight-armed and water-breathing - but human, nonetheless. After 70 years living among humans, Todd’s descendants are going back out into the Union to make their mark.

A Tortantula and a Flatar. The most enigmatic teaming in the mercenary guild, it’s also a perfect pairing, where one’s strengths cover the other’s weakness. Raised together from birth, their lives are a brutal series of tests. Azah isn’t like most other female Tortantula; she’s much smaller and made fun of. No one expects her to survive, much less succeed, but she’s still given a chance and assigned a Flatar: Sadek. The two quickly bond and find they complement each other. Against all odds, they survive the breeding dome and join the ranks of their races’ mercenaries.

Max Edwards has always felt like something was wrong with the world. Like something was...off. Like his entire life was a lie being told by the people around him. Then, it begins. From his friend’s acreage outside Oklahoma City, he witnesses a giant saucer descend from the sky to hover over the city. Countries all around the world report the same thing - mysterious vessels that refuse all attempts to communicate. As the world comes apart at the seams, Max realizes everything that’s ever happened to him was leading up to this.

Sea Siege: The nuclear war had come at last, and the research team on an island in the West Indies thought they had been lucky to survive. But survival was going to require more than luck, when they found themselves under attack by sea creatures out of darkest legend. Star Gate: Long ago, the Star Lords had come from a dying Earth to Gorth, where they helped the inhabitants build a civilization. Now some of the Lords have resumed wandering among the stars, but others have decided to travel through an interdimensional gate to another Gorth in a parallel universe.

During a classified mission to the ISS, astronaut Jack Kildare picks up an eerie signal. An alien spaceship is orbiting distant, icy Europa. It looks derelict...but is it? As fear sweeps across Earth, NASA spearheads a frenzied effort to build a ship capable of traveling to Jupiter to confront the alien menace. Technology intertwines with espionage and sabotage in a race against the clock. Fighting for his rightful place in the mission, Jack finds himself submerged in a world of secrets, international power games, and cold-blooded murder.

No one in the history of histories has lost more than Philippa Georgiou, ruler of the Terran Empire. Forced to take refuge in the Federation’s universe, she bides her time until Section 31, a rogue spy force within Starfleet, offers her a chance to work as their agent. She has no intention of serving under anyone else, of course; her only interest is escape. But when a young Trill, Emony Dax, discovers a powerful interstellar menace, Georgiou recognizes it as a superweapon that escaped her grasp in her own universe.

They’ve watched us for centuries through the Rift. They’ve prepared. Invasion is inevitable. The Earth Fleet has known of the Watchers for years, unwilling to share the knowledge with humanity. Now it might be too late. Hidden away from the Fleet, one man is creating a new colony ship destined for the other side of the Rift, but he’s missing a few pieces. Three other people have varied paths to get there. Ace goes from the streets of Earth to the Fleet training facility on the moon. Flint, an ex-Fleet pilot, must decide if a job is worth his life.

In 2028, Mark Noble is conducting a survey of a moon crater. The entity secretly grabs a ride back to Moonbase on Mark’s buggy. Once in the habitat, it begins to take over the crew. They find themselves in a frightening, helter-skelter adventure with only two possible outcomes: losing or saving the Earth.

Fifteen years into a 20-year voyage, war veteran Captain Throttle Reyne is looking forward to taking a break from dealing with malfunctions, glitches, and the hassles of monitoring 1,000 colonists in cryo-sleep. But when her colony ship breaks down in the middle of nowhere, Throttle and her crew must leave the colonists behind to search for help. They find a ship that's not only missing a crew...it's clearly not from their star system.

Commander Noa Sato plans a peaceful leave on her home planet, Luddeccea, but winds up interrogated and imprisoned for her involvement in the Archangel Project. A project she knows nothing about. Professor James Sinclair wakes in the snow, not remembering the past 24 hours or knowing why he is being pursued. The only thing he knows is that he has to find Commander Sato, a woman he's never met.

Bearing Earth's hopes for deliverance from the alien threat, Jack Kildare and his fellow astronauts successfully complete the long journey to Jupiter. But someone on board is trying to sabotage the mission. As they approach the mysterious alien spaceship orbiting Europa, the crew fractures into rival factions. Without warning, a long-range attack cripples the human ship. Now the broken crew is the least of Jack's worries. The alien spaceship isn't a wreck, after all. And whoever is on board wants the humans dead.

To win the war one man must break the rules of war. Because in the fight against the ruthless Sa’Nerran Empire there is only victory or death. The Sa’Nerra were close to defeat, then everything changed. Armed with a unique neural weapon, the merciless alien warriors turned fleet crew against their own. Entire warships went rogue. Suspicion and fear ran riot. Victory now required new tactics and a new kind of ship and crew.

Colonel Jake Thomas has found himself at the edge of disaster once more and managed to pull back from the brink. Defeating the alien armada without the use of a re-created doomsday device was a great victory. However, it was a victory tainted by the realization that a new NeHaw leadership was in place, and they knew how to fight a war in space. He was once again fighting a two-front war, one in space and one on the home front.

The lone survivor of a horrific experiment, warrior Mylomon was left with unique and dangerous abilities. He takes care of the necessary dirty work for his clan, but he’s yet to earn their trust. After all, how can you trust an assassin? Now that he’s found his fated mate, his miracle, she recoils at the sight of him. Daisy is every good and sweet thing in the universe, and he will not let her go. How can he convince her that he’s not the monster he appears to be?

CDF Lieutenant Harry Wilson has one simple task: Watch an ambassador’s dog while the diplomat is conducting sensitive negotiations with an alien race. But you know dogs - always getting into something. And when this dog gets into something that could launch an alien civil war, Wilson has to find a way to solve the conflict, fast, or be the one in the Colonial Union’s doghouse. "The Dog King" is a tale from John Scalzi's The Human Division, a series of self-contained but interrelated short stories set in the Old Man's War universe.