Space Opera First Contact

The newly formed Military Assistance Command-Maltaan (MACM), led by General Ellis Boudreaux, is facing serious problems. The Maltaan rainy season has begun, and the unpredictable weather has significantly reduced flight operations. The east-west highway which connects the capital Daarben to Ulvaan, the only major city in the east, is choked with convoys. The increasingly vulnerable rail line is the sole means of moving supplies to support Space Marines deployed in the east. Thousands of PCS were abandoned by their mercenary handlers, and it’s up to the Space Marines to collect them.

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.

Caught up in an ancient battle, the crew of EX-2 must face the gods themselves. Before long, the entire fleet is drawn into the conflict, a conflict that can only end one way: in the destruction of a traditional way of life, provided they can survive.

When you’re lost and alone you must put aside any hope of succor and become a scavenger, a hunter/gatherer, scrounge, sift through the debris life has left behind, seek out that which you need to survive. The trick is to remain whole, to keep some sort of moral compass, to find that one line you will not cross. This is now what faces the people of the last starship Reacher.

As a professional finder, Fergus Ferguson is hired to locate missing objects and steal them back. But it is rarely so simple, especially after his latest job in Cernee. He’s been recovering from that experience in the company of friends, the Shipmakers of Pluto, experts at crafting top-of-the-line AI spaceships. The Shipmakers have convinced Fergus to finally deal with unfinished business he’s been avoiding for half his life: Earth. Fergus hasn’t been back to his homeworld since he was 15, when he stole his cousin’s motorcycle and ran away.

With powerful forces working behind the scenes, Daisy seemed to be on the path to what may very well be a rousing victory. Or a glorious death, should she fail. For obvious reasons, she hoped for the former rather than the latter. She and her friends had persevered and come out on the other side time and again. Now they just had to pull together one last time to stand against their greatest foe. Success would mean victory. Failure would mean the loss of all they held dear.

The plot by the Galactic Union’s Mercenary Guild against the Four Horsemen has culminated in an invasion of Earth. Faced with an overwhelming force, the human mercs had no choice. They’ve fled, leaving Sansar Enkh to go to the Mercenary Guild headquarters on Capital Planet to stand trial for humanity. On the run, Jim Cartwright and Nigel Shirazi have travelled to the Winged Hussars’ secret base of New Warsaw, in an effort to convince Alexis Cromwell to join the fight, while the other mercenaries who escaped the fall of Earth have gone to the perceived safe haven of Karma.

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.

The BSR crew have worked hard, getting the Slow Boatmen settled. They deserve a little time off at home in the Holler. Just kicking back, watching the world go by. Their shepherd has other ideas, of course.

Come along as Bob and the crew of the Gene help the Boatmen get settled on a new planet. See what dangers they find as they explore it together. Frank and Ernest save the day and the planet. The Walnut Cartel has one more try to get rid of BSR. See how the crew deals with it all.

Sixty-seven years ago the Qash'vo'tar conquered Earth. Ever since then, the aliens had ruled from above. The Qash'vo'tar did not care what humanity did on the ground, as long as they didn't attempt to build anything that could get them to the stars. And now, sixty-seven years after they had been conquered, it was time for humanity to show the Qash'vo'tar that they had been right to fear humanity.

Gnat the Devourer is becoming a more prominent figure in grand space politics. Sure, he may not be totally independent yet, but he has enough leeway to be able to differentiate Earth's interests from those of its Geckho suzerains and act exclusively for the good of his own kind. Gnat must balance obligations to his almighty suzerains against a desire to advance humanity's position in space, and his home planet's search for ever more allies.

Firestarter does her best to fit in on the Gene, but it's a long jump from stone-tipped spears to starships. Janet and the other girls do their best to help her fit in. Eve and Aika have trouble getting to know a new AI, and Topper's past brings a new problem for the crew to work on. Come along while they work it all out.

Following their best sellers Vulcan's Forge and Vulcan's Heart, Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz embark on a new trilogy chronicling the latter-day adventures of one of Star Trek's most beloved characters, shedding new light on his world's shocking history.

Two crises challenge the Omnians. Alex Racine’s fleet draws a first-contact conflict, which faces the Ollassa, a symbiotic flora race. The Omnian fleet sails from alliance space in an effort to interdict an alien ship that arrives at the Worlds of Lights, the Ollassa system. Soon after arriving, the alien ship deploys machines to scour asteroids for resources in the system’s far belt.

The sisters’ leader, Miriamal, and three mining chairpersons investigate an unexplored wormhole for possible economic expansion. Aboard the Dominance, they exit the wormhole and are stunned to find the nearby system inhabited. More troubling, technologically advanced warships hold station above the system’s exoplanet. SADEs witness the hasty return of the Dominance and the cessation of messages between Miriamal and Lisa Dyehouse. The Truth Matters partners race against time to save Samuel, and they’re not above leveraging an unreliable criminal hacker.

In 2004, Doctor Damien Howard's 131st birthday celebration took an unexpected turn. His personal SETI project detected an extraterrestrial signal directed at Earth. Unfortunately, Dr. Howard's long-hoped-for communication contained a message of dire warning rather than greeting. In 1945, humanity had become a species of galactic interest and was given 100 years to address the issue.

Under the benevolent leadership of the League of Peoples, there is no war, little crime, and life is sacred...unless you're an Explorer. The ugly, the flawed, the misfit, the deformed, they are the unwanted, flung to the farthest corners of the galaxy to investigate hostile planets and strange, vicious creatures. Out there, there are a thousand different - and terrible - ways to die.

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.

After initial contact with an alien entity leaves Kaylan unconscious, she wakes up to discover that she's now in command of the Athena mission stranded in a star system far from Earth. The ship's computer is malfunctioning, and former hacker and astronaut trainee Zack Quick is the only one who can fix it. If he can't figure out what's wrong, they have no hope of getting back home. In order to survive, the crew of the Athena must explore an alien star system to find the species that summoned them.