Space First Contact

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.

An interstellar colony ship on Earth prepares for take-off. Before reaching their first stop—Proxima b Centauri—they are awoken from their cryo pods early, only to learn there's been an alien invasion on Earth. But it's too late. Can the crew find a safe refuge from the invaders and track down colonists from other ships?

What could be more commonplace than grass or a world covered over all its surface with a wind-whipped ocean of grass? But the planet Grass conceals horrifying secrets within its endless pastures. And as an incurable plague attacks all inhabited planets but this one, the prairie-like Grass begins to reveal these secrets - and nothing will ever be the same again.

It is the year 12,020 GE and Emperor Cleon I sits uneasily on the Imperial throne of Trantor. Here in the great multidomed capital of the Galactic Empire, 40 billion people have created a civilization of unimaginable technological and cultural complexity. Yet Cleon knows there are those who would see him fall - those whom he would destroy if only he could read the future.

With the Galactic Republic in ruins and Capriana Prime uninhabitable after Moldark's assault, Magnus and his team are left to pick up the pieces. Hundreds of thousands of refugees need to be evacuated before time runs out. But the Gladio Umbra aren't without their own problems. In desperate need of rest, Colonel Caldwell arranges for the gladias to take refuge on a neutral planet. But Moldark's defeat prompts several key team members to reassess their roles and make decisions that will dramatically shape the Gladio Umbra's future.

“There’s a lot of things they didn’t tell me when I signed on with this outfit.” At least that’s what Sam Washington discovered after he got hired as Spaceport Manager on Space Station Zion. For one thing, everyone hated his predecessor, so now they hate Sam. Still, once he took the job, Sam considered it his duty to get the place back in shape. But angry admirals and profit-crazed tycoons keep crawling into his job description. Too bad no one is on his side – even when the fate of the entire station is on the line! Can Sam fix this mess, or is it time to start updating his resume?

It’s been four years since Earth threw its full military prowess against the Lanky incursion. Humanity has been yanked back from the abyss of extinction. The solar system is at peace. For now. The future for Major Andrew Grayson of the Commonwealth Defense Corps and his wife, Halley? Flying desk duty on the front. No more nightmares of monstrous things. No more traumas to the mind and body. But when an offer comes down from above, Andrew has to make a choice: continue pushing papers into retirement, or jump right back into the fight? What’s a podhead to do?

Nearly 100 years before the events of Orson Scott Card's bestselling novel Ender's Game, humans were just beginning to step off Earth and out into the Solar System. A thin web of ships in both asteroid belts; a few stations; a corporate settlement on Luna. No one had seen any sign of other space-faring races; everyone expected that First Contact, if it came, would happen in the future, in the empty reaches between the stars. Then a young navigator on a distant mining ship saw something moving too fast, heading directly for our sun.

When the Equal Grasp and other unsavory aliens launch their plot to open humanity up to the stars—in the name of profit, of course—Van and his crew spring into action, fearing the fallout of a world gone mad. With each passing event in his career, Van continues to unravel locked memories, held by Perry, that explain a family history far more violent than he ever imagined.

Now the McCormacks are finally going to get into space. At least if the big governments on Earth don’t stop them. They’ve managed to accumulate enough money to build a city, and now they’re going to build a space station that will create a safe place to manufacture their new technology, and a way to demonstrate to the world that humans have a future in space. But as they demonstrate more advanced technology, they attract more interest from the world’s governments. What will it take to keep their dream alive?

The Laconian Empire has fallen, setting the 1,300 solar systems free from the rule of Winston Duarte. But the ancient enemy that killed the gate builders is awake, and the war against our universe has begun again.

In a future where humanity has conquered mortality, Dr. Isabella Moretti, a renowned exo-archaeologist dedicated to deciphering the secrets of extinct civilizations, faces an unwelcome "Second Life" of compulsory service. Thrust into the Aegis Legion, the Concord's shield against frontier perils, she's deployed to the desolate Erebus System at galaxy's far edge —a place besieged by the Phantoms, an unseen, merciless alien force whose motives are unknown. With colonial outposts systematically obliterated by devastating kinetic strikes from orbit, Isa and her newly formed platoon, Void ...

No longer bound to Earth or the Core Sol System, the human race has expanded into the far beyond, seeding itself throughout the final frontier. It has been a time of great expansion, hope, and progress. These remote colonies, some found at the fringes of the Outer Rim, rely on supplies brought to them by deep-space commercial shipping vessels, which transport the needed goods and commodities to keep humanity alive and thriving in the most remote and austere locations.

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.

Jon Ryan is irreverent, cocky, funny, and walks with a swagger. The cocky fighter pilot turned astronaut is also Earth's only chance for survival. The planet Jupiter, thrown off orbit, will destroy Earth in less than a century. Jon volunteers for the most ambitious, desperate mission ever conceived: His consciousness must be transferred into an experimental android host, where he'll live an immortal - and lonely - life. Jon's only companion on his 50-year voyage is his ship's irritable AI.

Orphaned as a boy, raised in the Czech countryside by his doting grandparents, Jakub Procházka has risen from small-time scientist to become the country's first astronaut. When a dangerous solo mission to Venus offers him both the chance at heroism he's dreamt of, and a way to atone for his father's sins as a Communist informer, he ventures boldly into the vast unknown.

The Alliance has arrived. There is uncertainty about the arrival of a substantial alien presence on Earth and its impact on humanity, and its way of life. At the same time, there is fear the Coalition may return. That fear becomes a harsh reality of inter-galactic war when the Coalition returns, in strength. Earth is now on the frontlines of the War of Succession. Joe Hunt and his team now have internal and external threats to Earth. The only option is to travel to the Alliance to learn more about the war and what may be in store for Earth. MORE BOOKS BY DONALD B MCFARLANE The Earth Saga ...

Jadzia Dax has been a friend to Etom Prit, the Trill Trade Commissioner, over two lifetimes. When Etom visits Deep Space Nine with the request to rein in his wayward granddaughter Nemi, Dax can hardly say no. It seems like an easy assignment: Visit a resort casino while on shore leave, and then bring her old friend Nemi home. But upon arrival, Dax finds Nemi has changed over the years in terrifying ways...and the pursuit of the truth will plunge Dax headlong into a century’s worth of secrets and lies!

After the Delphi League defeats the Fazullan invasion of Onisiwo, Catie is tasked with managing the Onisiwoen transition to the Delphi League, as well as the repatriation of all the slaves from the Fazullan fleet. She has to navigate the complex diplomatic circles, as different interests complete for advantage in the new age of interstellar trade.

Earth's armed forces have stopped the Lanky advance and chased their ships out of the solar system, but for CDC officer Andrew Grayson, the war feels anything but won. On Mars, the grinding duty of flushing out the twenty-meter-tall alien invaders from their burrows underground is wearing down troops and equipment at an alarming rate. And for the remaining extrasolar colonies, the threat of a Lanky attack is ever present.