Space Science Exploration

Lee had expertise in different sciences and 24th-century tech due to learning machines that could transfer an expert's knowledge. He had the latest high-tech weapons. He had acquired the latest protective equipment. He was sixteen and got his great-grandfather's A.I., Anna, to find him a planet that had magic. His A.I. hacked a portal to take him there. He might have bitten off more than he could chew.

Get ready to experience two more origin stories in the Backyard Starship universe.

John Riley is a physicist who achieves his lifelong dream of unraveling the mysteries of anti-gravity, but along the way, also unwittingly discovers the secret of interstellar communication. When he and a small group of coworkers attempt to respond to an unexpected message, believing it to have originated from somewhere on Earth, they find more than they anticipate. The message is from deep space.

A virus. A planet in danger. A race against time. When a deadly virus appears on a highly advanced world, questions will be asked. Where did it come from, is it a threat, and is there a cure? When a government official gets infected, the Alliance’s premier special forces team will be sent out to investigate. Val Standish and the Prime Team must deal with not only the virus, but local bureaucrats as they try and unravel the mystery before things spiral out of control.

Simon is the best delivery boy that Mr Edwards’s restaurant has ever had. He’s on time every time, and he’s gotten nothing but good reviews. But he needs more money. His mother’s medical treatment won’t pay for itself, and his father is already working three jobs to try to make ends meet. But it might just be his lucky day: Mr. Edwards has another job for him. It’s more delivery work, but not the usual kind. You might even say that it’s out of this world. Oh well. Beggars can’t be choosers, and the pay is fantastic.

Michael Watson is the captain of an inner galaxy cruiser: He Purchased Star Dancer right out of school and has spent the last twenty years running people and supplies to outposts within the confines of the Solar System and the established bases on the Moon, Mars and Saturn's moons. The times are changing though and the big money is in the longer out of system runs. To do that he'll need a crew and a bigger ship, but he has the ambition and the rest just might fall into place. A new navigator, the beautiful Petra starts him thinking in a new direction and not just about Star Cruising. Maybe ...

A reprieve... That’s all the victory over the bug-like Seekers has given Tom Bradstreet and his crew of Marines and Space Force troops on Mars. Because the failure of his pawns among the Seekers has only made the creature known as the Monitor even more determined to destroy the Visitor and its crew of ancient alien Blessed, sleeping in stasis for tens of thousands of years. They created the Seekers as their children, their heirs, and manufactured the Monitors to watch over them.

So, here’s the thing: Cleo and her friends really, truly didn’t mean to steal this spaceship. They just wanted to know why, twenty years ago, the entire Providence crew vanished without a trace. But then the stupid dark matter engine started all on its own, and now these four twenty-somethings are en route to Proxima Centauri, unable to turn around, and being harangued by a snarky hologram that has the face and attitude of the ship’s missing captain, Billie.

On a mission to a planet threatened by a toxic disaster, Obi-Wan and Anakin are separated. Anakin and three other apprentices - one of them his rival - must work together in order to survive. Anakin's instincts are clear...but are they right?

The year is 2701. Following a near-fatal disaster, roughneck freelancer Roman Matthews becomes unwittingly trapped at the center of a harrowing conspiracy. Hunted by Deorum’s government, the Coalition for Prosperity, Roman must use his deadly skillset to survive against all odds.

“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?

The Starship Sa Niro and the Starship Sß Oubliette were in orbit around a black hole, one afternoon...by the end of the day, the crews of both starships were dead, victims of a single killer: Captain Alpha Raine. Raine claims he's acting under the command of a voice emanating from the black hole: Mr Modo. No one believes him.Everyone knows that things go into black holes; nothing comes out. But something inexplicable has been happening to Raine, and whatever it is seems to be spreading.

A well-deserved vacation turns disastrous when Marius arrives in a strange white room. As reality sinks in, there's a culprit he never expects: aliens. Highly advanced aliens rip him from Earth to level up in the Semo Universe. A place where wormhole portals, spaceships, energy beamers, and enhancement attributes are common. Loaded with debt, a small shuttle, and a sultry AI, he braves the vast universe one mission at a time.

Everyone knows that Chitzas are masters of spatial compression, routinely exploring distant places across the Milky Way in their wedge-shaped scout ships. But rumors abound of even greater accomplishments. Some say these intrepid explorers have reached beyond the galaxy. When a distress signal is received from deep space, making sense of the emergency becomes a personal matter for Daniel Rice. His wife is onboard that ship.

SADEs Hector and Trixie discover the world where the colonists of the Terminus, the fifth colony ship, settled. Unfortunately, their Trident squadrons arrive at the worst possible time and catastrophe strikes. The powerful fleets of three races are fighting for possession of a beatific world, Cercia. The Trident squadrons are occupied by SADEs skilled in exploration, astronomy, and data research. They’re unprepared for the onslaught of deadly probes, fighters, and warships directed against them.

In the near future space debris around Earth has made it impossible to traverse our solar system. Or it would be, if not for prisoners sentenced to clearing that debris known as Orbital Garbage Removal Experts, or O.G.R.E. for short. Former linguistics professor Dax has made it a habit of working aboard The Junkyard with a small crew, the conspiracy theorist, tech-savvy hacker Mark and the once decorated military hero turned war criminal, Kane.

Are we alone in the universe? It's a fundamental question for Earth-dwelling humankind. Are there other worlds like ours, out there somewhere? In Hidden in the Heavens, Jason Steffen, a former scientist on NASA's Kepler mission, describes how that mission searched for planets orbiting Sun-like stars—especially Earth-like planets circulating in Earth-like orbits.

Traveling faster than light, the transport ship Redundancy is cut off from communication as effectively as an ancient ocean liner. The isolation suits crew member Ace Vance just fine—she’s got nowhere else to be. But when a wealthy passenger turns up dead during a routine voyage, Ace will have to connect with the passengers and crew to uncover the truth. Tragedy will strike again—it’s only a matter of time.

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.

Hunted through system after system. Veronica Rose is gone. Frontier Security has fallen. And so goes Captain Thatcher’s last lifeline. Cut off from the rest of the star cluster, and surrounded by enemies, all seems lost. Thatcher must reach deep inside himself to find the resolve to keep fighting. The spacers under his command are counting on him to bring them safely home. In the darkest hour, someone must provide a light.