Space Opera First Contact

Colton Beck has six months to live. He works for the Angor near Los Angeles, aware that any day could be his last. The Angor arrived 20 years ago, resolved to help mankind survive, but not everyone believes their motives are honorable. When the Angor offer humanity a colony world, Colton is determined to see another planet before his final breath. He’s been diagnosed with Xeno, a rare disorder that surfaced with the Angor’s arrival, but he won’t let this stop him.

For generations, we colonized worlds, and the human race spread throughout the galaxy. One discovery could end it all. They called the ship Lady Vengence, and her Captain, Gavin Andal, was young, a bit arrogant, and the perfect fit for a bunch of misfits more interested in shore leave than work. Nobody was interested in being a hero. Sometimes there's no choice.

The problem is, we didn't come home alone. No one has ever seen anything like this. What they're calling it sends shivers down my spine: a parasitic alien pathogen. It could be a virus, a toxin, or maybe something even worse. And believe me: what we don't know definitely can hurt us. It's too late for me—I've been exposed. But this has never been about me. It's going to take some incredible risks and another long-shot space mission to get to the bottom of this, but I'll fight until my last breath to undo the damage I've done.

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.

Naira and Tarquin have escaped vicious counter-revolutionaries, misprinted monsters, and the pull of a dying planet. Now, bound together to find the truth behind the blight that has been killing habitable planets, they need to hunt out the Mercator family secrets. But, when the head of Mercator disappears, taking the universe’s remaining supply of starship fuel with him, chaos breaks loose between the ruling families. Naira’s revolution must be put aside for the sake of humanity’s immediate survival.

They banned him from space. But someone has offered him a way back. Can he afford the price? Famed engineer and test pilot Jericho Fox has been grounded for reasons he'd rather put behind him. But a political leader from a rival party offers to send him back to space. Fox finds himself stuck between working for the enemy and doing what he loves again. Meanwhile, high above Earth on Astraea Station, decorated astrophysicist Dr. Evelyn Park is on the verge of a scientific breakthrough that could make history.

The year is 1961. The Cold War is in full swing and the space race is on. Russia aims to send humanity to space. But what if space comes to humanity instead? Yuri Gagarin’s epic flight into space is disrupted when an alien Mothership jumps into orbit, causing a cosmic car crash that defies all odds. Everything changes. The US and USSR must quickly put aside their differences. In exchange for the Earth’s help in the rebuilding of their Mothership, the mysterious aliens, the Vulbathi, offer promises of technology beyond humanity's wildest dreams.

Everything had changed for Zander Greaves over the last few weeks. He'd gone from being a private military contractor with his squad in the Middle East to being isekai-ed into a different multiverse. He lost his friends and his lover, Selda, in the same hour of his arrival, sparking in him the mission to kill every single Entoma he could to repay them for his loss. Luckily, an alien named Crish arrived to help Zander adjust to his new reality.

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.

Kalian Gaines and the remains of humanity are forced to forge a new beginning in a galaxy that doesn't want them. After the Gomar wrought destruction across the Conclave, those taking refuge aboard the Gommarian are tainted by the same brush - humans are dangerous. After a Conclave excavation unearths an object that predates even their ancient society, Kalian Gaines and Li'ara Ducarté are allowed off the Gommarian and asked to assist in an investigation that will take them deeper into the conspiracy of their origins.

The surviving Méridiens have returned to Confederation space, aided by their recently discovered cousins, the New Terrans. They expect a celebration after their 71-year absence. Instead, they're shocked to find the silver ships have destroyed half the Confederation. The Méridiens are fleeing in advance of the horde of alien ships. But Alex Racine and his crew didn't come this far to run away from humanity's enemy.

Caiden's planet is destroyed. His family gone. And, his only hope for survival is a crew of misfit aliens and a mysterious ship that seems to have a soul and a universe of its own. Together they will show him that the universe is much bigger, much more advanced, and much more mysterious than Caiden had ever imagined. But the universe hides dangers as well, and soon Caiden has his own plans.

Morgan Casimir, commander of the A!Tol Imperial cruiser Defiant, has seen the works of the Precursor aliens known as the Alava. She has seen their accidents threaten worlds and consume entire star fleets. Charged by her empress to prevent a conspiracy of profiteers from finding and using a lost fleet of Alava warships, she knows unimaginable catastrophe looms if she fails. With her lover, xenoarcheologist Dr. Rin Dunst, at her side, she is sent to a hot zone on the edge of war to once again achieve the impossible.

For years, the Zodarks plotted their revenge against the Republic. Spies infiltrated their colonies and eventually found their seat of power—Earth, located in a previously unknown system. A plan was hatched, a force made ready. The Zodarks would unveil a superweapon that was sure to tip the balance of power back in their favor. Then the Zodarks learned of Murphy's Law—and their plans were never the same.

Hudson Powell had always been a drifter, but after his father died, he vowed to turn his life around. He quit freelancing as a starship pilot and joined the Relic Guardian Force as a 38-year-old rookie. That was a big mistake. The RGF police the alien wrecks that have been found on every portal world discovered in the last century. They make sure the relic hunters pay taxes on the priceless alien tech they scavenge from the hulks. The snag is that the RGF is corrupt. And Hudson’s training officer Logan Griff is the worst scumbag of the lot.

Nothing wrecks Captain Eva Innocente’s vacation plans quite like an anonymous threat to vaporize billions of people. Hundreds of monoliths have suddenly materialized in space, broadcasting the same looped message: surrender or be exterminated. Is the universe being epically spammed?

The shadow governments of Earth are complicit in the alien kidnappings of innocent citizens from all over the world. Traded among the darker denizens of the galaxy, humans command high prices as slaves, experimental subjects, and worse. The League of Aligned Worlds (LAW), is the only thing that stands between these helpless human victims and the dark fate that awaits them on lawless worlds. A collective of sentient planets with highly advanced technology, LAW, actively monitors Earth and similar worlds for abductions. In the majority of cases, LAW, rescues the victims, apprehends the ...

Viceroy Miles Hunt had accomplished the impossible. He gambled the Republic, the RNS Freedom and the entire joint allied fleet in one glorious battle. Secretly, the Zodarks plotted revenge, a restart to hostilities once their spies had found Earth. With peace achieved, new exploration began. Opportunities at new settlements enticed. All believed the threat of annihilation was past them and with that comforting thought, Liam and his Belters headed for their new world. They would build and expand their society—giving the people of Earth an alternative to the Republic.

Albert Birnbaum was once one of the biggest political talk show hosts around, but these days he’s watching his career enter a death spiral. A stranger offers a solution to his woes, promising to put him back on top. It’s everything Birnbaum wants, but is there a catch? And does Birnbaum actually care if there is? "A Voice in the Wilderness" 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.

Meet Doctor Jens. She hasn’t had a decent cup of coffee in 15 years. Her workday begins when she jumps out of perfectly good space ships and continues with developing treatments for sick alien species she’s never seen before. She loves her life. Even without the coffee. But Dr. Jens is about to discover an astonishing mystery: two ships, once ancient and one new, locked in a deadly embrace. The crew is suffering from an unknown ailment and the shipmind is trapped in an inadequate body, much of her memory pared away.