Space Opera First Contact

They banned him from space. But someone has offered him a way back. Can he afford the price? Famed engineer and test pilot Jericho Fox has been grounded for reasons he'd rather put behind him. But a political leader from a rival party offers to send him back to space. Fox finds himself stuck between working for the enemy and doing what he loves again. Meanwhile, high above Earth on Astraea Station, decorated astrophysicist Dr. Evelyn Park is on the verge of a scientific breakthrough that could make history.

The Second Kalu War rages across known space. The newly formed Union undergoes its first baptism, the baptism of war. The Free Fleet is barely holding the line against the Kalu. Salchar and the other commanders of the Free Fleet have one goal: survive. As war rages, politics and power brokering are at work behind the scenes in the Union. Even if the Free Fleet survives the war, will they survive its aftermath?

Colonial Union diplomat Hart Schmidt is back home for Harvest Day celebrations - to a family whose members wonder whether its youngest son isn’t wasting his life clinging to the lowest rung of the CU’s diplomatic ladder. When his father, a legendarily powerful politician, presents him with a compelling offer, Schmidt has to take stock of his life and career. "This Must Be the Place" 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.

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.

For years, Starfleet Intelligence agents have carried out undercover assignments deep within the Klingon Empire. Surgically altered and rigorously trained in Klingon culture, they operate in plain sight and without any direct support, while collecting information and infiltrating the highest levels of imperial power. Their actions have given Starfleet valuable insight into the inner workings of Klingon government and its relentless military apparatus. After three of Starfleet’s longest serving agents fear exposure, they initiate emergency extraction procedures.

Caine Riordan, reluctant diplomatic and military intelligence operative, has just finished playing his part repulsing the Arat Kur's and Hkh'Rkh's joint invasion of Earth. But scant hours after the attackers surrender, the mysterious but potentially helpful Slaasriithi appeal to Caine to shepherd a diplomatic mission on a visit to their very alien worlds. The possible prize: a crucial alliance in a universe where the fledgling Consolidated Terran Republic has very few friends.

Zack Quick has been on the move for 10 years, hacking big corporations and exposing their secrets. Then he stumbles upon one of the biggest discoveries that will forever change the world - and possibly get him killed. Kaylan Farrow is the pilot for Earth's most advanced spaceship, whose maiden voyage is supposed to take her crew to Titan, but newly released images from a deep space probe threaten to cancel the mission.

With the human-Shiravan treaty on the line, Kitty Hawke must violently end a mutiny aboard one of her ships. Afterwards, she leaves Shiravi, bound for Earth after being away for two years. Marsha Kane replaces Kitty as the head of the human fleet in Shiravan space, but she has her own plans on how to end the war with the Garmon, formerly called the Korvil. Meanwhile, the humans and Shiravan take the fight to the Garmon, destroying their ships and decimating their worlds, and it seems as if the war is nearing its end.

Held prisoner by a vicious alien whose race is determined to conquer the galaxy, Zack wakes to find that he is cut off from everything. Zack must figure out a way to escape his captors and a prison full of dangerous aliens to get back to his ship. Did his friends even know he was still alive? Kaylan commands the Athena, Earth's most advanced spaceship. The crew is far from home and caught in an intergalactic war. The Boxans demand that they leave the star system, Xiiginn warships are hunting them, and the Athena is hopelessly outclassed.

Zilfaquir is having a bad day. Shin-Sho Corporation dispatched his emergency engineering team (EET) to the remote ice planet, Xiao 2, to investigate a communications blackout. The Xiao 2 facility, composed of three subsurface ocean stations, awaits his team below hundreds of meters of ice and kilometers underwater. Upon arrival, he discovers the Xiao 2 facility has experienced an epidemic, leaving most of the station’s personnel either dead or dying. Or transforming. Worse, the stations are in danger of imploding due to sabotage.

The Omega War is in full swing. Earth has fallen to General Peepo’s army, and the surviving human mercenaries have taken refuge at the hidden Winged Hussars’ base in New Warsaw. On Earth, the defensive forces fight to keep the hearts and minds of their fellow humans, but Peepo’s plans are slowly converting the people to her way of thinking, and the Mercenary Guild troops continue to root out the forces arrayed against them.

Starting a war with an enemy 100 times stronger is insane. It’s desperate. And it’s Earth’s only hope. A massive alien power looms over humanity, claiming Earth as its territory and humanity as its slaves. The Hegemony has already taken over one colony, yoking hundreds of thousands under their brutal rule. Every tactical exercise, every war game, and every simulation gives humanity zero chance in a defensive campaign.

The year is 2162. Thirty-eight years after first contact, Lord Commander Grayson St. Clair leads the Tellus Ad Astra on an unprecedented expedition to the Galactic Core, carrying more than a million scientists, diplomats, soldiers, and AIs. Despite his reservations about their alien hosts, St. Clair is deeply committed to his people - especially after they're sucked into a black hole and spat out four billion years in the future. Civilizations have risen and fallen. The Andromeda Galaxy is drifting into the Milky Way. And Earth is most certainly a distant memory.

Life on Minea isn't all that the shiny brochures back on Earth promised the passengers of Ship 12-22. In order to survive, most of the population must slave away in the dark, unforgiving caverns of the Yyinum mines. Ethan's position as governor proves to be less effective than he hoped as he clashes with the power-hungry companies that control the planet. While on a surveying ship, Ethan and the crew crash-land into the cavernous depths beneath the Karst Mountains, where a maze of tunnels and slew of fatal dangers block their journey home.

It’s not easy being 16, especially when everyone expects great things from Tilly. It’s even harder when her mother and father are Federation luminaries, not to mention pressing her to attend one of the best schools the Federation has to offer. Tilly wants to achieve great things - even though she hasn’t quite worked out how to do that or what it is she wants to do. But this year, everything will change for Tilly, as she is about to embark upon the adventure of a lifetime - an adventure that will take her ever closer to the stars....

Defeated in battle, the fractious alliance of Goltar, Spine Patriots, and the Midnight Sun Free Company are chased across the Spine Nebula by the Endless Night and their sea-monster allies, the Tyzhounes. Abandoning the nebula is not an option. For the free trader skipper, Lenworth Jenkins, the people of its 15 tormented worlds are the cause he’s been searching for all his life.

On Earth, the moratorium on mercenary contracts is disrupting Jim Cartwright’s efforts to stand up the new Terran Federation. Making matters worse, Jim has received intelligence that someone is squatting on asteroids in our Solar System...and Sansar Enkh is pretty sure they don’t have Earth’s best interests in mind. Fearing the aliens have plans for another invasion - or worse - Jim takes his ship, Bucephalus, and sets off to investigate.

As James T. Kirk prepares to retire from a long and illustrious Starfleet career, events in a distant part of the Federation draw him back to a part of the galaxy he had last visited as a young man, a mysterious world called Faramond whose name takes Kirk on a journey back to his youth. At 16, Kirk is troubled, estranged from his father, and has a bleak future. However, a trip into space with Kirk's father, George, and Starfleet legend Captain Robert April changes James Kirk's life forever, when a simple voyage becomes a deadly trap.

Topper and the crew of the Gene take a long trip to find the one that got away. Ever wonder what the other captains in BSR get up to? Follow along as Joshua of the BS Rocket J goes looking for love and new trading partners. Watch Dingus of the BS Armstrong make friends by doing a good deed....

Book nine of the popular series Delphi in Space Delphi. In it, we find the McCormacks having to defend Artemis from the same aliens that attacked the Paraxean colony fleet over 70 years before. Follow along as Catie finally graduates from the Academy. Discover the secrets of the invading Aliens - what do they want, where do they come from?