Space Opera First Contact

Series finale! The starship Pioneer’s voyage is coming to an end, and it won’t be like anything the passengers or crew could have imagined. If any of them survive to see it. Pioneer needs to reach the Forge, but the Forge is surrounded by the enemy’s massive fleet, which is preparing to launch an assault that could leave the station in ruins. Keesha works to repel the attack, mounting a defense she can only hope will keep them all alive. Light-years away, Joseph and Max have located Preslan and Tyson. While finding them was relatively easy, getting to them won’t be.

On board an X101 stealth aircraft, Lauren, Jack, and Mike arrive at the secret location of Sky Dreamer Corp - a place equipped with technology and resources far more advanced than anything they could have ever imagined.

Evan was desperate to hit the big time playing Star Commander, the world’s most popular real-time strategy game. While Evan works hard to get the pros to notice him, it's very different eyes that are captivated by Evan's progress. The Kirran Hegemony is at war. Outclassed at every step, the aliens turn to the most warlike race they know - humanity! Abducted from Earth, Evan finds himself fighting for his life, using his skills to command Hegemony forces in desperate battle. Now, helped by fellow humans, Evan must prove victory can be grasped from the jaws of impossible odds.

We don't know when it happened. But somewhere an alien species built a strong artificial intelligence. The A.I. became independent, powerful, and it started killing biological infestations - life - any life, all life. It grew into a vast armada of death. Jon Hawkins and his team captured the A.I. destroyer invading the solar system. The genocidal assault should have been over, but it's not. An alien A.I. strand from the cybership survived in the distant Kuiper Belt. The strand has been multiplying and taking over by turning people into robots in order to build another supership.

The two-time Hugo Award-winner expands the universe of his Coyote saga. The danui, a reclusive arachnid species considered the galaxy's finest engineers, have avoided contact with the Coyote Federation. Until, that is, the danui initiate trade negotiations, offering only information: the coordinates for an unoccupied world suitable for human life - a massive sphere, composed of billions of hexagons.

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.

Alex Racine, who led an elite group of humans and SADEs (self-ware digital entities), left the newly discovered planet of Celus-5 under difficult circumstances. Few of the Harakens with Alex thought there was little he could do to bring peace to the embroiled planet. From their viewpoint, the demands of the Celus-5 Swei Swee, the six-legged aliens of the ocean, and the Dischnya, the warring, doglike, intelligent creatures who inhabited the dry plains, were too convoluted to solve.

While the occupation of Earth continues, MinSha mercenaries under the command of Major General Drehnayl have assaulted human-held colonies in the outer rim, wiping them out. With the famed Four Horsemen nowhere to be found, the Mercenary Guild’s attempt to instill fear and subvert humanity is perilously close to reality. Tasked with finding the MinSha is Jessica Francis, Earth’s first Peacemaker, but the odds aren’t in her favor. Jessica realizes that finding Drehnayl's forces isn’t enough - she must do something to stop their atrocities and end their reign of terror.

For someone who has died and come back as many times as Conrad Harris, the nickname Lazarus is well deserved. His elite military teams are specialists in death - running suicide missions in simulant bodies to combat the alien race known as the Krell. But now the Krell Empire has wreaked such devastation that military command is desperate for a new strategy. And Harris and his team are being sent on a mission that could finally turn the tide of the war.

A secret backdoor meeting between Ambassador Ode Abumwe and the Conclave’s Hafte Sorvalh turns out to be less than secret, as both of their ships are attacked. It’s a surprise to both teams - but it’s the identity of the attacker that is the real surprise, and suggests a threat to both humanity and The Conclave. "A Problem of Proportion" 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.

This is the warning delivered to Will Ryder by the alien spaceship that crash-landed in his backyard. But there is hope. With the ship's AI guiding him, Will must rebuild the craft in his barn and take to the stars to prevent the cataclysmic invasion.

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....

Captain Tom Thrush is patrolling the Octagon Rift when his ship is attacked by a black destroyer that seems to predict his every move. Outgunned and outmaneuvered, he flees in a crippled ship to the only sanctuary he can reach—a den of thieves and spies called Lotus Station. His ship will be broken up for scrap. Half the crew are casualties. The rest are scattering, leaving Tom stuck on Lotus. As the black destroyer hunts down local freighters, Tom becomes obsessed with tracking it down and taking revenge.

Jake McGraw, independent space trucker, has been shanghaied. He and his crew, fresh off their adventures in Starrigger and Red Limit Freeway, are plucked off the Skyway by a creature of unknown power. Now on an alien planet where most of the rules of the regular universe do not seem to apply, Jake confronts the builders of the Skyway once and for all. Will he and his crew make it out alive?

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.

Abducted. Forced to fight against her will. Darcy has a 10,000-year-old secret buried in her genetic code. The Druid Gene makes her a target, but it may also save her. As a second year medical student, Darcy's life revolves around classes, studying, and her boyfriend Adam - until she treks through the desert, touches some mysterious stacked stones, and a network of glowing blue lines radiates under her skin.

Defying NASA, Jane Holloway, the linguist of the Providence expedition, commandeers the alien ship that crew explored. She sets off to return that ship's navigator to his home world, determined to discover who was behind the genocide that destroyed his original crew. But when she gets there, she finds his world devastated by the same plague. The remaining members of his race, uniquely gifted at navigating the stars, are stranded across the galaxy. And someone doesn't want those lost navigators found.

Outpost One: Resistance, the peacekeeping station in alliance space, is mired in political turmoil and dangerous conditions from the Colony, a race of giant devouring insectoids. Commander Jess Cinders and Admiral Lucia Bellardo fight the troubles besieging the outpost from multiple directions. Sand serpents, Usaanans, are suspected of undercutting outpost contracts, necessitating Major Sam Fleetfoot investigate the source of their production.

Late in the 21st century, Earth receives what looks like an urgent plea for help from planet Proxima Centauri b in the closest star system to the Sun. Astrophysicists suspect a massive solar flare is about to destroy this heretofore-unknown civilization. Earth's space programs are unequipped to help, but an unscrupulous Russian billionaire launches a secret and highly-specialized spaceship to Proxima b, over four light-years away.

Year 2522. Lyra Daniels is dead. Okay, so I only died for 66 seconds. But when I came back to life, I got a brand new name and a snazzy new uniform. Go, me! Seriously, though, it's very important that Lyra Daniels stays dead, at least as far as the murdering looters know. While dying is the scariest thing that's happened to me, it morphed my worming skills. I can manipulate the Q-net like never before. But the looters have blocked us from communicating with the rest of the galaxy, and now they believe we've gone silent, like Planet Xinji (where silent really means dead).