Space Science

Former Marine gunnery sergeant Torin Kerr is attempting to build a new life with salvage operator Craig Ryder on his ship, the Promise. Turns out civilian life is a lot rougher than she'd imagined - salvage operators are losing both cargo and lives to pirates. And when they attack the Promise, Craig is taken prisoner and Torin is left for dead. When Torin finds out why the pirates needed Craig, she calls in the Marines to get him back....

Tanis Richards has spent half her life on the Intrepid, guiding the great colony ship, and its two million passengers, across hundreds of light-years. She has risked life, limb, and those dearest to her to get this far. Now she's within reach of her goal; the New Canaan System, and a normal, stable life. The kind she's only dreamed about. The only remaining hurdle is to strike a deal with the Transcend Alliance and trade the Intrepid's advanced technology for the star system. If only things were so easy.

When a minor trade partner sends the Castle Federation a desperate call for aid, they have few resources to spare from their all-consuming war against the Terran Commonwealth. Unwilling to be seen failing their allies but able to spare only a tiny force, Castle sends a hero to command the task group: Captain Kyle Roberts, the Stellar Fox. Beyond the Rimward frontier of the Federation and its allies, little is as it seems. The pirates are being armed by an outside force, and the politics of these worlds is made deadlier by their poverty.

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.

Dropping out of subspace into the wrong galactic sector, Sethran Kada wakes up with a headache and an extraordinary alien aboard his ship. She implores him to help stop the abductions of her people, a newly evolved species emerging from subspace. Their dangerous potential has caught the attention of rebel factions as well as the ruling Commonwealth. When contact with her kind turns pilots into casualties, the Governors fear an imminent invasion engineered by their rebel enemies.

Think there's an unbridgeable gulf between human and alien thought? Not so! There's a common tongue, all right - and Nicholas Van Rijn speaks it fluently: trade. For behind the buffoonish blarney and bawdy bonhomie of the Falstaffian Van Rijn is a man who gets things done. A born wheeler-dealer who usually leaves both sides better off in the bargain. (While pocketing a hefty cut of the profits himself, of course!)

When aliens attack and obliterate his solar system, fifteen-year-old Cody Ford narrowly escapes on a battered shuttle, carrying a precious cargo: the last remnants of humanity. Forced to think fast, Cody teams up with a brilliant young engineer named Ellaz to scavenge the wreckage of a lunar shipyard and construct a new starship – a ship capable of outrunning annihilation and carrying a warning to the rest of the galaxy. But building a ship is only half the battle. Cody and Ellaz must master cutting-edge technology, confront impossible choices, and face a chilling truth: sometimes, saving...

Major Jimjoy Earle Wright, secret agent of the Empire, is intelligent and highly trained. But he succeeds all too well in overthrowing a military dictatorship - and the result is a new government inimical to the Empire and disgrace for Jimjoy. After surviving two assassination attempts, Jimjoy realizes that it's his own imperial superiors who want him dead; that, in fact, his worst enemies could become his best friends. He fights his way to safety on the planet Accord, where the Ecolitan Institute wins his loyalty and changes his identity.

What if first contact wasn’t the beginning… but the consequence of being remembered? In the late 22nd century, humanity reverse-engineers a crashed alien vessel buried beneath Antarctica. The result: the Acheron, Earth’s first interstellar ship, launched with a crew of soldiers, scientists, and secrets. But when they discover a distant Earth-like world—ravaged by war and ruled by a brutal galactic empire—the crew is mistaken for survivors of a long-dead civilization. Captured and interrogated, they must keep the truth hidden: that they come from a planet no one in the galaxy even ...

Jacobson provides a comprehensive overview of the space industry, allowing everyone to understand the role space plays in our lives and how it will continue to transform the world. Over 100 industry experts and leaders share insights, presenting a 360-degree view of the wide-ranging space industry, its emerging opportunities, investment potential, and benefits.

Chiku Akinya, great granddaughter of the legendary space explorer Eunice and heir to the family empire, is just one among millions on a long one way journey towards a planet they hope to call their new home. For Chiku, the journey is a personal one, undertaken to ensure that the Akinya family achieves its destiny among the stars. The passengers travel in huge self-contained artificial worlds - holoships - putting their faith in a physics they barely understand.

Tyler Callas is the pampered heir of a high-level Corporate Council executive, groomed from birth to take a seat beside her as a member of the ruling class of the Commonwealth society. But the bloody war with the alien Tahni has hit close to home and Tyler wants to join the military, something his powerful mother won't allow. Desperate to escape her control, Tyler changes his identity to Randall Munroe, a product of the poverty-stricken Underground, and enlists in the Marines.

When a running battle brings the Fafnir home to Earth, it ends with the death of a trusted friend—and a new focus on what comes next for Van and his crew. The Guild is rotten. It must be changed. It must be healed. But to do that, Van will have to marshal resources on a scale he's never considered, and that means calling in favors from friends. With the Schegith fleet in training, and the Conoku itching to get back into the fight, Van has a clear plan for what he has to do—which is the one thing he doesn't want to do.

Henghis Hapthorn is the foremost penetrator of mysteries and uncoverer of secrets in a decadent, far-future Old Earth, one age before Jack Vance's Dying Earth. A superb rationalist, he has long disdained the notion that the universe has an alternative organizing principle: Magic. But now a new age is dawning, overturning the very foundations of Hapthorn's existence, and he must struggle to survive in a world where all the rules are changing.

The Empire is splitting at the seams. The Great Houses refuse to obey the Throne World and have begun to conduct increasingly independent politics. Sensing the weakness of the central government, even the most loyal star systems of the Imperial Core are refusing to take orders from above. Is this just a string of coincidences, or a coordinated campaign? Can a disjointed humanity rally around a strong leader to deflect an alien invasion? Who of the many figures in intergalactic politics can rise to this challenge?

An alien cat turned me into a superweapon. I was homeless on the streets of Third York when it happened. Then the military arrived and gave me a choice. Enlist or die. The next thing I knew, I was fighting giant robots at the Xenoforce Academy's boot camp. Figuring out superpowers and energy levels was hard enough, but I had to deal with a mind-reading alien princess, a team of gorgeous women, and a femme fatale in charge of the whole operation. Oh, and a galactic conspiracy is threatening all of humanity. It's up to me and my new feline friend to set things right. A civil war's brewing on ...

In this anthology, you'll find 17 tales of conflict and heroism, exploration and discovery, endurance and triumph. Flee the apocalypse of modern-day Earth, fly a fighter in the cold emptiness of deep space, and find new life on the distant shores of an alien world. You might even discover something about yourself as each author opens a window on the soul of mankind.

Owen Deathstalker became a hero after the great rebellion against the tyranny of Lionstone XIV. But he and his compatriots have no chance to enjoy their victory before they are launched into conflict again - this time among factions quarreling over who will replace the deposed Empress. Owen and Hazel d'Ark attempt to escape the ensuing chaos only to discover that Humanity has problems more pressing than political squabbles as they encounter an even greater threat - an encroaching invasion fleet of alien origin....

Dr. Neil Anson Clemons was born at the very moment that men first landed on the moon and always strived to become an astronaut and reach the stars. Neil devoted his life to staying physically fit as any astronaut should be through martial arts and mentally fit by studying and becoming one of the world's foremost experts in quantum physics and gravitational theory. Now he and his team have achieved a breakthrough, both in building a warp drive, and finding a new energy source powerful enough to make the drive more than an interesting theoretical concept.

Owen Deathstalker - outlawed, with a price on his head and the blood of a mighty warrior lineage in his veins - had no choice but to embrace a dangerous destiny. With nothing to lose, only he had the courage to take up arms against Queen Lionstone XIV. Now as he gathers his unlikely allies - the legendary washed-up hero Jack Random, the beautiful pirate Hazel d'Arc, and the alien Hadenmen whose purposes no human can discern - the eyes of the downtrodden are upon him while the freedom of a galaxy hangs in the balance....