The universe is a dangerous place, a fact violently brought home to Frank Compton for perhaps the thousandth time when a stranger delivering a message dies right in front of him. An operative for Western Alliance Intelligence until his whistle-blowing activities got him fired, Compton is now being sought out by the Spiders, the robotic alien beings responsible for the upkeep and operation of the Quadrail transportation system, which connects the galaxy's twelve inhabited empires.

En route to far-off stars, Toby’s consciousness has a crucial mission: inhabit his clone long enough to repair a spaceship, then zip back to Earth. He’s done it a million times, more or less. OK, twelve times. It should only take a few hours. Until he wakes up in jail. And he’s not alone. His fellow prisoners: a cadre of alien soldiers. His prison: an ethereal boundary that will imprison their spirits until their bodies die. His jailers can’t even see him. But their pet cat (er, iguana cat?) can—and it’s got a serious case of the zoomies.

Damon Lathe and his blackcollar combat team face their most serious challenge. On one of the conquered human colony worlds is a Ryqril tactical center through which flows an entire sector's worth of military data. If the blackcollars can find a way inside, it could tip the balance in the current Ryqril-Chryselli war. It could even start humanity on the path back to ultimate freedom.

On Tigris, children develop telekinesis beginning at the age of five. By the time they're pre-teens, though, their special abilities peak, then slip away as they reach maturity. Being able to "teek" gives them power—even over most adults—until they gradually become regular teenagers, no longer special, no longer with authority and status. Some handle the Transition better than others.

Timothy Zahn shows an unparalleled mastership of science fiction in the fifteen tales gathered here. "The Price of Survival" features an alien ship that arrives in our solar system without hostile intentions but with a desperate need whose fulfillment could destroy humanity. "The Giftie Gie Us" tells the story of two lonely survivors who find love among the ruins of a post-apocalyptic United States. And in "Pawn's Gambit," a human and his alien opponent face off over a game that will decide which one of them will return home.

Only the recently dead can helm the "deadman switch" to pilot a ship through the Cloud, a mysterious solar entity that shields the Solitaire solar system and its valuable heavy metals. Two convicted murderers are routinely sacrificed for this task—one to enter the system, one to exit.

Grad student Danae Panya's dream assignment has been approved. She'll study Triplet, the strange planetary system scarred by nuclear war and connected through portals. The most experienced Courier of Triplet, Ravagin, will lead her to its hidden worlds—Threshold, Shamsheer, and Karyx—and introduce her to their secrets, including their advanced technology, their dark magic, and the captivating demon culture of the innermost planet.

Jordan McKell has a problem with authority. Unfortunately for him, the iron-fisted authority of the powerful Patthaaunutth controls virtually every aspect of galactic shipping. In order to survive, Jordan ekes out a living dabbling in interstellar smuggling for outlaw concerns that represent the last vestiges of free trade in the galaxy. So when Jordan and his partner, Ixil - an alien with two ferret-like "outhunters" linked to his neural system - are hired by a mysterious gentleman to fly a ship and its special cargo to Earth, they jump at the job.

Cobras are technologically-enhanced warriors bred to fight an alien menace no ordinary human can withstand. At the center of action, on the Cobra world of Aventine, is the legendary Moreau clan. While the Cobras are necessary in times of war, in times of peace, they are often reviled by those they have saved. Now, the Cobras have resisted a second invasion of the alien Troft forces, forcing the Troft to a stalemate - even converting some thoughtful Troft into uneasy allies against their kin.

Stephanie Harrington had always expected to be a forest ranger on her homeworld of Meyerdahl until her parents relocated to the frontier planet of Sphinx in the far distant Star Kingdom of Manticore. It should have been the perfect new home - a virgin wilderness full of new species of every sort, just waiting to be discovered. But Sphinx is a far more dangerous place than ultra-civilized Meyerdahl, and Stephanie's explorations come to a sudden halt when her parents lay down the law: no trips into the bush without adult supervision!

Grad student Danae Panya's dream assignment has been approved. She'll study Triplet, the strange planetary system scarred by nuclear war and connected through portals. The most experienced Courier of Triplet, Ravagin, will lead her to its hidden worlds—Threshold, Shamsheer, and Karyx—and introduce her to their secrets, including their advanced technology, their dark magic, and the captivating demon culture of the innermost planet.

The universe is a dangerous place, a fact violently brought home to Frank Compton for perhaps the thousandth time when a stranger delivering a message dies right in front of him. An operative for Western Alliance Intelligence until his whistle-blowing activities got him fired, Compton is now being sought out by the Spiders, the robotic alien beings responsible for the upkeep and operation of the Quadrail transportation system, which connects the galaxy's twelve inhabited empires.

Deep in space lies the black hole known as Angelmass, so called because it emits enigmatic particles with the unusual ability to render humans calm, reasonable, and incapable of lying—which would normally be seen as a good thing. But not by everyone. Academic Jereko Kosta is pressed into service by the Pax to spy on the Empyrean, joining the crew of a ship actively hunting the particles. But what he learns turns out to be both scientifically fascinating and morally frightening.

Damon Lathe and his blackcollar combat team face their most serious challenge. On one of the conquered human colony worlds is a Ryqril tactical center through which flows an entire sector's worth of military data. If the blackcollars can find a way inside, it could tip the balance in the current Ryqril-Chryselli war. It could even start humanity on the path back to ultimate freedom.

When the solar flare took out the world's power… nobody could explain why the street lights still glowed in Jakarta. Was it a signal from space? When the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) transmits strange images of the red planet: a scientifically unexplained light phenomenon on the summit of Elysium Mons has the experts both concerned and baffled. A team needed to check it out. The mission to Mars was set. Now, they had to build the team.

Timothy Zahn shows an unparalleled mastership of science fiction in the fifteen tales gathered here. "The Price of Survival" features an alien ship that arrives in our solar system without hostile intentions but with a desperate need whose fulfillment could destroy humanity. "The Giftie Gie Us" tells the story of two lonely survivors who find love among the ruins of a post-apocalyptic United States. And in "Pawn's Gambit," a human and his alien opponent face off over a game that will decide which one of them will return home.

Only the recently dead can helm the "deadman switch" to pilot a ship through the Cloud, a mysterious solar entity that shields the Solitaire solar system and its valuable heavy metals. Two convicted murderers are routinely sacrificed for this task—one to enter the system, one to exit.

On Tigris, children develop telekinesis beginning at the age of five. By the time they're pre-teens, though, their special abilities peak, then slip away as they reach maturity. Being able to "teek" gives them power—even over most adults—until they gradually become regular teenagers, no longer special, no longer with authority and status. Some handle the Transition better than others.

Brent Parthet just wanted to be left alone. A deadly supercommando in the Southwind War, Brent had retired a hero to a wildlife preserve as far from civilization as possible to enjoy the simple life with his wife and young son. But when one of the Southwind, the massive, genetically-engineered slaves who'd rebelled against their human masters, shows up at Brent's door, asking for help from an old enemy, Brent will find out that the war isn't really over. And he may have been fighting for the wrong side.

Nine years ago, Lt. Commander Ky, a test pilot from the future, was flung back in time to a world that never existed. In this world, Carthage won the Punic Wars and Rome was all but destroyed, pushed back to a corner of the British Isles. That war is over. With Ky's help, the Romans formed a new Britannic Empire, defeated the mighty Carthaginian Empire, and set up a new paradigm in Europe.

A long era of peace and prosperity in the interstellar Commonwealth has suddenly come to an end. Four alien starships of unknown origin have attacked, without provocation, an eight-ship Peacemaker task force, utterly destroying it in six savage minutes. The authorities claim there were no survivors. But Lord Stewart Cavanaugh, a former member of Parliament, has learned through back channels that one man may have survived to be captured by the aliens: his son, Commander Pheylan Cavanaugh.

In the year 5199, Zorai Tenebrae logs into the world’s most immersive video game—Omniscape, the game that has swallowed the minds of billions. It is boundless. Infinite. Unbeatable. The war never ends. The factions never sleep. And no one ever asks the right questions. Until him. But Omniscape is not just a game. It’s a prison. A recursive veil laid over the truth—a video game so perfectly engineered that not even Zorai, especially not Zorai, knows what it is.

Message from Inner Space, is a chilling, end-of-the-world story of an impending ELE, but not from a comet or asteroid—from within. Physics PhD., Dr. Hope Leanders and her colleagues at SETI, detect a reoccurring signal that seemed to be coming from outer space. After further investigation, they find that the signal actually emanates from Earth, travels into space, then ricochets back to the ground, making it appear to come from space.

The Awakening of Joel Singer presents the story of a young man who unleashes the latent abilities of body and mind due to a genetic experiment gone haywire. Joel joins the mysterious Dr. Harrington, CEO of Gnotech, and his thousands of “Community Volunteers”, enhanced humans loyal to Dr. Harrington, in creating incredible medical innovations, and on increasingly dangerous missions at home and abroad that push his abilities further. All the while, powerful forces conspire against them.

A dead man's quest is never over. Zane Lucas inherits more than his wildest dreams from a man he's never met. The same week, a mysterious cluster of drones appears before him during a random border patrol. Who sent them in the first place? Earth's alliance with the Gral is on the brink of collapse. The forty-three colonies are under duress, and an unknown entity is coming for them.