Space Opera First Contact

The Devil's Heart is a legendary object of unsurpassed power and mystery. Worlds that believe in magic consider it Darkness's mightiest talisman; and worlds of science consider it a lost artifact of some ancient and forgotten race. Some say the Heart enables its possessor to control people's minds and to amass wealth enough for a dozen lifetimes, while others think it capable of raising the dead, perhaps even changing the flow of time itself. But to all, the location of this fabled object has remained a mystery, until now.

Trevor Gray has been stripped of his command of the starship America and is unsure what to do with his life. Having dedicated so much of himself to the service, he knew following the super-AI Konstantin’s advice could have severe consequences. He just never thought he would be out of the fight. Because that’s what Earth is in: a fight against a sinister alien force that is so technologically advanced, there seems little hope. That’s why he had disobeyed his orders in the first place: to figure out a way to stop them. But now he’s beached - just what Konstantin wanted.

In the conclusion of the Poseidon's Children saga, the Akinya family receives an invitation from across the stars - and a last opportunity to redeem their name.... "Send Ndege". The cryptic message originated 70 light-years away from the planet Crucible, where Ndege Akinya lives under permanent house arrest for her role in the catastrophe that killed 417,000 people. Could it be from her mother, Chiku, who vanished during a space expedition decades earlier?

Trapped on an alternate Earth, the combined crews of a crashed Russian spaceship, a British expeditionary force and a group of strays from the future must work together to survive, escape and discover what led them to this point. All are from parallel universes where small changes in history led to different realities, and the tensions between the groups are rising.

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.

Lord Commander Grayson St. Clair has guided the Tellus Ad Astra to a part of the universe no human - and possibly no race known to man - has ever seen. Far from the worlds they know, the colony ship is on its own facing...something that seems to have no weakness. Something whose sole purpose seems to be devouring civilizations. With both time and space as enemies, St. Clair must figure out a way to explore this new corner of space, maintain military order on a mission that was supposed to be civilian, and - somehow - bring the Tellus Ad Astra back to the Milky Way.

Scorpia Kaiser has always stood in Corvus's shadow until the day her older brother abandons their family to participate in a profitless war. However, becoming the heir to her mother's smuggling operation is not an easy transition for the always rebellious, usually reckless, and occasionally drunk pilot of the Fortuna, an aging cargo ship and the only home Scorpia has ever known. But when a deal turns deadly and Corvus returns from the war, Scorpia's plans to take over the family business are interrupted, and the Kaiser siblings are forced to make a choice....

Edited by best-selling authors and universe creators Mark Wandrey and Chris Kennedy, Tales from the Lyon’s Den includes 18 all-new stories in the Four Horsemen universe by a variety of best-selling authors - and some you may not have heard of...yet.

If you like bold characters, planet-hopping, and edge-of-your-seat action, then you'll love Michael Robertson's thrilling series. The Shadow Order - Book one of the Shadow Order series. In a fight, Seb is unbeatable. But in this galaxy, there are a million ways to lose… Seb Zodo has never backed down from a fist fight. After all, he's been gifted with powers that make losing impossible. But lately, Seb's gift seems more like a curse… This bundle also includes The First Mission and The Crimson War, the second and third books of The Shadow Order series.

“What’s wrong?” The bigger geroo asked, twisting Kanti’s helmet free. “Can’t breathe?” The commissioner accidentally let his last cleaning crew starve to death. So now, Kanti and 49 of his teammates will have to spend the rest of their lives in a one-room barracks, with only a single airlock protecting them from the planet’s poisonous atmosphere. Surrounded by towering monsters, on a world where the very air is lethal, mysterious burrowing strangers are pushing the crew into a panic. Will Kanti be able to keep them from tearing each other apart?

Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchins discovers an interstellar message from a highly advanced race that could be her last chance for a mission before the program is shut down for good. Hutch has been the academy’s best pilot for decades. She’s had numerous first contact encounters and even became a minor celebrity. But world politics have shifted from exploration to a growing fear that the program will run into an extraterrestrial race more advanced than humanity and war.

Nicole Lee's life is going nowhere. No family, no money, and stuck in a relationship with a thug named Bungie. But, after one of Bungie's "deals" goes south, he and Nicole are whisked away by a mysterious moth-like humanoid to a strange ship called the Fyrantha. Once aboard, life on the ship seems too good to be true. All she has to do is work on one of the ship's many maintenance crews. However, she learned long ago that nothing comes without a catch. When she's told to keep quiet and stop asking questions, she knows she is on to something.

The first major alien offensive against Earth has been blunted, winning humanity time to deploy new weapons and prepare new tactics as Earth's space navies prepare to take the offensive. But the enigmatic aliens have plans of their own - a full-scale attack on Earth that will either win the war in a single stroke or lose it. The stakes have never been so high. The fate of humanity itself is in the balance.

Baston, Sca, and Cherie didn’t expect to crash on an unfamiliar planet. After they are kidnapped by interlopers on planet Sarta, they barely escape with their lives. Things go from bad to worse when they run out of fuel close to Adna and find themselves completely out of their element. The more time Baston and Sca spend around Cherie, the stronger their attraction becomes towards her. When they are surrounded by pheromone-driven plants, their attraction reaches the point of no return, and all bets are off.

After three years of exile from humanity's war against the Kurians, David Valentine returns to battle. The Lifeweavers, Earth's allies in the conflict, have mostly vanished, but those that remain are held captive by an overlord known as the Seattle Kurian. To free them, Valentine must convince the legendary resistance fighter known as Adler to join his cause. But the "Old Man" is something of an overlord himself....

When radio telescope operators Lauren Stelleck, a woman with a special gift enabling her to literally see certain sounds, and Steve Andrews, a diehard sci-fi geek, detect a signal like no other at Jodrell Bank in England, a chain of events is unleashed that propels Earth towards all-out nuclear war. Can Lauren and Steve unlock the secret of the signal before our species tears itself apart?

When Zuul-led thugs attack members of the Queen Elizabeth’s Own Foresters leaving the Lyon’s Den, the battles on Cimaron 283133-6A and Peninnah become enemy action, not simply mercs fulfilling contracts. What the Foresters don’t realize is that these attacks have been planned for years as part of an even larger series of plots aided by members of the Mercenary Guild.

The year is 1961. The Cold War is in full swing and the space race is on. Russia aims to send humanity to space. But what if space comes to humanity instead? Yuri Gagarin’s epic flight into space is disrupted when an alien Mothership jumps into orbit, causing a cosmic car crash that defies all odds. Everything changes. The US and USSR must quickly put aside their differences. In exchange for the Earth’s help in the rebuilding of their Mothership, the mysterious aliens, the Vulbathi, offer promises of technology beyond humanity's wildest dreams.

They wiped out humanity's ancestors. They laid waste to the Terran Empire. They destroyed Earth. Now, they have come to harvest what remains. The Conclave has been preparing for war, but no one guessed the scale of what waits on the edge of the galaxy.

Operation Redemption, the final desperate mission in taking back the planet from the Organics has failed. Captain Rick Noble and his soldiers have been captured and imprisoned on an alien ship. But not all is lost. Their sacrifice allowed Doctor Sophie Winston, Doctor Emanuel Rodriguez, and their small team to escape in the NTC Sunspot - their destination, Mars. The perilous journey to find a lost human colony may offer Sophie and the rest of humanity a chance at life.