Space Science Fiction

The hunt for captive humans still held in Eyndar Empire space has hit a wall. Captain Jessie Ramsey's assault on Outpost 71 resulted in the liberation of hundreds but little in the way of leads. But what if dark magic could find more? Wouldn't the benefit outweigh the harm? And what if that dark magic was chronomancy? And what if that chronomancy was wielded by the galaxy's least responsible wizard, Eric Ramsey? Still willing to give it a try? Still worth the risk?

It is an age of exploration. Jedi travel the galaxy, expanding their understanding of the Force and all the worlds and beings connected by it. Meanwhile, the Republic, led by its two chancellors, works to unite worlds in an ever-growing community among near and distant stars. On the close-orbiting planets of Eiram and E’ronoh, the growing pains of a galaxy with limited resources but unlimited ambition are felt keenly. The two worlds’ hatred for each other has fueled half a decade of escalating conflict and now threatens to consume surrounding systems.

All Liam Avione ever wanted was to be a Deathbringer. Almost twenty years old now, he’s approaching the last six months of the decade-long training program, hopeful for his future as a protector of the Universe. One, slight problem: he’s got a genetic defect that he’s been keeping a secret. But as the training intensifies, so do his symptoms. Which are really hard to hide when they cause him to puke, pass out, and have a seizure in front of the training cadre.

The Cadian Gate is broken, and the Imperium is riven in two. The might of the Traitor Legions, kept shackled for millennia behind walls of iron and sorcery, has been unleashed on a darkening galaxy. Among those seeking vengeance on the Corpse Emperor’s faltering realm are the Death Guard, once proud crusaders of the Legiones Astartes, now debased creatures of terror and contagion.

On Mars, a scientist experiments with a new engine that will one day become the drive that fuels humanity's journey into the stars. On an asteroid station, a group of prisoners are oblivious to the catastrophe that awaits them. On a future Earth beset by overpopulation, pollution, and poverty, a crime boss desperately seeks to find a way off planet. On an alien world, a human family struggles to establish a colony and make a new home. All these stories and more are featured in this unmissable collection of short fiction set in the hardscrabble world of The Expanse.

The galaxy is doomed. Monkeys may be clever and too stubborn to give up, but Skippy The Idiot Who Got Played knows the harsh truth: this is a fight he can’t win. The odds are not only stacked against him, he was designed not to win this fight. Maybe he can salvage some faint memory of the civilizations that inhabit the galaxy, but those beings are doomed. Doomed. Including the Merry Band of Pirates.

Restored to her former state of health (and determination) Lady Cecelia goes in search of fresh bloodstock - she's had enough of politics. But once again she manages to put herself - and Heris Serrano - at the point where lightning will strike. This time it's invasion from the neighboring empire: The Benignity of the Compassionate Hand. Heris is only a civilian now, with a space yacht - what can she do in the face of a full-scale fleet of warships? But she is also a Serrano - born to lead.

Humanity's thousand-year-old interstellar empire has been rotting from the inside for over a century, thanks to venal, corrupt, and power-hungry sovereigns from a dynasty many consider illegitimate. The latest in that lineage, an increasingly psychotic empress, is pushing her realm toward collapse as admirals and generals rebel against her rule. That rebellion quickly drags the once mighty Imperial Fleet into a devastating fratricidal conflict between factions.

Space pirates! Words that conjure up rousing tales of adventure, derring-do, brave heroes battling the scurvy vermin of the galaxy. Those vermin have taken to pillaging cargo ships and, even worse, space liners, relieving the helpless passengers of their valuables, and worse with the comely women passengers, then spacing the lot - unless one or more of the aforementioned brave heroes arrive in the nick of time, and turn the tables, making the spaceways safe again for the innocent and helpless.

It was the time of the Moon of the Three Rings when the Free Trader ship Lydis landed on the planet Yiktor and junior crew member Krip Vorlund visited a beast show. He was strangely attracted to the owner of the show animals, a delicate and mysterious woman named Maelen. Soon Krip was caught in a vicious struggle by powerful opponents over the fate of Yiktor - and he learned the nature of Maelen's sorcery when he found his mind trapped in the body of a wolf-like creature.

2034 : Rose Fuller et son jumeau Archimedes sont les premiers êtres humains à naître sur Mars. Enfants du génie qui a permis de coloniser la planète rouge, ils grandissent sous les feux des médias, enfants chéris et symboles vivants de la réussite humaine et d'un avenir radieux pour tous sur Mars. 2103 : la liberté n'est plus qu'un souvenir sur Mars, tombée presque entièrement sous la coupe de la corporation Fuller. Rose a disparu, et son nom n'est plus prononcé qu'à voix basse, pour évoquer le souvenir d'une terroriste martyre.

They slept for hundreds of years, dreaming of a new home in the Andromeda galaxy. When finally they awake, their dreams of peace are shattered. These colonists - turian, salarian, asari, human, and more - face an uncharted galaxy and threats beyond understanding.

The planet Korwar was a glittering jewel of a world, inhabited by the galaxy's wealthiest, visited by the upper classes of other worlds in search of diversion. The jewel had a flaw: the Dipple, its name coming from a contraction of "displaced person", where the misfits, the hopeless, the penniless eke out a wretched existence on the dole. Two young men hoped to escape from the Dipple.

Esmay Suiza and Brun Meager should be friends - they're both bright, brave, likable and adventurous. But true friendship doesn't run any smoother than true love. Brun thinks Esmay's a stuck-up prig, and Esmay thinks Brun's a spoiled rich brat who's making a play for Barin Serrano, Esmay's first love. So when Brun falls into the hands of a repressive religious militia movement, Esmay finds herself n disgrace, suspected of conniving at the capture.

The Ship fled a dying Earth to save the human race. Launched as the last gasp of humanity, the Ship set out to preserve the species by seeding the universe with one billion colonists. Generations of crew, trained to be either flight or marines, have spent 5,000 years protecting the Ship and its civilian cargo from the constant threat of alien violence. Fifteen-year-old Zax has always had trouble fitting in with the other cadets, but he's finally on the cusp of attaining his dream and gaining entrance to the Pilot Academy.

Idris has neither aged nor slept since they remade his mind in the war. And one of humanity’s heroes now scrapes by on a freelance salvage vessel, to avoid the attention of greater powers. Eighty years ago, Earth was destroyed by an alien enemy. Many escaped, but millions more died. So mankind created enhanced humans ­such as Idris - who could communicate mind-to-mind with our aggressors. Then these ‘Architects’ simply disappeared, and Idris and his kind became obsolete.

When the Quint Confederacy and the Kos Empire went to war - again - Queen Samara wisely kept her Rogue Coalition out of the conflict. But staying neutral in a galactic war doesn't pay the bills, not when both sides refuse to trade with neutral sectors. With her people on the brink of starvation, Samara hatches a daring plan to snatch the kidnapped Kos Emperor from the Quint mercenaries holding him.

Light years from Earth, an alien planet forced their queen from power and cast her into space. For millions of years, the queen's ship wandered the cosmos, until it crashed on Earth. As a child, Michael Hems first lost his mother to cancer, and then his father to the bottom of a bottle. Growing up in a small town, Michael's friends became his life. The only one he knew. The only one he wanted. But the night he found the ship, everything he loved was thrown into jeopardy.

Micah Cole has been in deep space for three years while his parents chase their obsession with finding intelligence to the far corners of the universe, but Micah dreams of the friends he left behind and counts the days until they return home. When a devastating meteor shower nearly destroys their ship, Micah is separated from his family and stranded on Sovereign, a vast planet of raging rivers, towering forests, and deadly creatures. If Micah ever wants to see his family or his home again, he’ll have to learn to how to survive on a hostile alien world, all alone.

Years ago, Old Earth sent forth sisters and brothers into the vast dark of the prodigal colonies armed only with crucifixes and iron faith. Now, the sisters of the Order of Saint Rita are on an interstellar mission of mercy aboard Our Lady of Impossible Constellations, a living, breathing ship which seems determined to develop a will of its own. When the order receives a distress call from a newly-formed colony, the sisters discover that the bodies and souls in their care - and that of the galactic diaspora - are in danger.