Space Opera First Contact

When leading archeologist Dr. Hank Murphy discovers an alien artifact on the Moon, corporate interests are quick to get involved. Murphy just wants to understand what this thing is and how it works. After months of research, he finally manages to locate the power source. The gate is soon activated...and Murphy is pulled through. Moments later, he finds himself in a war-torn corner of the galaxy where strangers like him are called Orphans...and they are considered extremely dangerous. Somehow altered by the experience, the archeologist now has enhanced strength, speed, and agility.

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.

Years after clean energy ended the world’s reliance on fossil fuels, a lull of peace encompasses all of humanity. Some think we should travel to the distant corners of the galaxy; others oppose the idea, thinking that the harnessed singularity reactors are unnatural. When a terrorist group attacks the Lunar colony, members of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force are divided as a result of the incursion. Years later, Lieutenant Commander Kyle Torres comes face to face with old friends, as he’s thrown into an assignment that could change everything.

Peacemakers. The Galactic Union's most capable enforcers and resolute negotiators, their name alone elicits fear and awe among the Union's citizenry. In the entire history of the Galactic Union, Hr'ent Golramm would be only the seventh member of the Oogar race to earn a Peacemaker badge. But becoming a Peacemaker doesn't seem to be his destiny. He's not even sure he wants to be one. Deputy Selector Hak-Chet, on the other hand, has even bigger plans for the monstrous, young Oogar.

Anna Sinjari—refugee, survivor of genocide, disaffected office worker—has a close encounter that reveals universe-threatening stakes. While humanity reels from disaster, she must join a small team of civilians, soldiers, and scientists to investigate a mysterious broadcast and unknowable horror. If they can manage to face their own demons, they just might save the world.

CDF Lieutenant Harry Wilson has been loaned out to a CDF platoon tasked with secretly removing an unauthorized colony of humans on an alien world. Colonial Ambassador Abumwe has been ordered to participate in final negotiations with an alien race the Union hopes to make allies. Wilson and Abumwe’s missions are fated to cross - and in doing so, place both missions at risk of failure.

We Only Need the Heads is a tale from John Scalzi's The Human Division.

A spaceship from Earth accidentally crossed through a hole in space-time to a universe where the force of gravity is one billion times as strong as the gravity we know. Somehow the crew survived, aided by the fact that they emerged into a cloud of gas surrounding a black hole, which provided a breathable atmosphere. Five hundred years later, their descendants still struggle for existence, divided into two main groups. The Miners live on the Belt, a ramshackle ring of dwellings orbiting the core of a dead star, which they excavate for raw materials.

During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira finds an alien relic. At first she’s delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move. As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a galaxy-spanning odyssey of discovery and transformation. First contact isn’t at all what she imagined, and events push her to the very limits of what it means to be human. While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity’s greatest and final hope....

When Klingon commander Kruge died in combat against James T. Kirk on the Genesis planet back in 2285, he left behind a powerful house in disarray - and a series of ticking time bombs: the Phantom Wing, a secret squadron of advanced Birds-of-Prey; a cabal of loyal officers intent on securing his heritage; and young Korgh, his thwarted would-be heir, willing to wait a Klingon lifetime to enact his vengeance.

The past returns to haunt Captain Jean-Luc Picard - a crime he thought long-buried has been exposed, and he must return to Earth to answer for his role in a conspiracy that some call treason. Meanwhile, the USS Enterprise is sent to apprehend pirates who have stolen vital technology from a fragile Federation colony. But acting captain Commander Worf discovers that the pirates’ motives are not what they seem and that sometimes, standing for justice means defying the law....

After one great battle, the Architects disappeared. Yet humanity’s fragile peace is brief. For, 40 years later, the galaxy’s greatest alien enemy has returned. This time, the artefacts that preserved entire worlds from destruction are ineffective. And no planet is safe. The Human Colony worlds are in turmoil as they face extinction. Some believe alliances with other species can save them. Others insist humanity must fight alone. But no one has the firepower or technology to ensure victory, as the Architects loom ever closer.

Investigating a series of violent raids by a mysterious predatory species, Captain James T. Kirk discovers that these events share a startling connection with the First Federation, a friendly but secretive civilization contacted early in the USS Enterprise's five-year mission. Traveling to the First Federation in search of answers, the Enterprise suddenly comes under attack from these strange marauders. Seeking refuge, the starship finds its way to the true home of the First Federation, an astonishing collection of worlds hidden from the galaxy beyond.

Kris Bjornsen has come a long way since alien slave ships scooped her up in Denver with thousands of others. Dropped off on an apparently uninhabited world with the rest, she has fallen in love with Zainal, a renegade Catteni, and has made a comfortable life for herself and her new family. But she feels a soldier's duty to escape Botany and rejoin the struggle for freedom.

Two Syndicate World star systems have fallen prey to a mysterious fleet of warships - a fleet controlled entirely by artificial intelligence - that is now targeting Alliance space. The warships are no mystery to Geary. They were developed by his government to ensure security but malfunctioned. If the Syndics learn the truth, the war with the Alliance will resume with a vengeance.

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.

In this present-day science fiction novel, Earth confronts an alien invasion. But not from a marauding army. It’s just one guy who got a bad tip. Jacob is a Prospector. He makes a living by discovering lost civilizations on long dead-worlds and selling off their cultural relics. And now he’s chasing a hot lead about a world where the population has only recently perished due to climate change. The artifacts would be worth a fortune. But when he reaches the planet called Earth, it isn’t dead at all. And the people there don’t appreciate him saying so. But they do like his spaceship. ...

Continuing their exploration of the Odyssean Pass, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the starship Enterprise discover what they at first believe is a previously uncharted world, with a civilization still recovering from the effects of global nuclear war. An astonishing priority message from Starfleet Command warns that there's more to this planet than meets the eye, and Picard soon realizes that the mysteries of this world may well weave through centuries of undisclosed human history....

Fergus Ferguson, repo-man, has one job: find the spacecraft Venetia's Sword and steal it back from Arum Gilger, ex-nobleman turned power-hungry trade boss. Finding Gilger in the farthest corner of human-inhabited space, a gas-giant harvesting colony called Cernee, was easy. The hard part will be getting past a field of space mines, hacking into the Sword's compromised AI, and fighting a crew of hostile enemies to take control of the ship. But when a cable car explosion launches Cernee into a civil war, Fergus finds himself caught in the crosshairs.

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.

Having magical powers makes you less than human, a resource to be exploited. Half-unicorn Gary Cobalt is sick of slavery, captivity, and his horn being ground down to power faster-than-light travel. When he's finally free, all he wants is to run away in his ancestors' stone ship. Instead, Captain Jenny Perata steals the ship out from under him so she can make an urgent delivery. But Jenny held him captive for a decade, and then Gary murdered her best friend...who was also the wife of her copilot, Cowboy Jim. What could possibly go right?