Exploration Fiction

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.

Keep your eyes down and your feet moving, or this planet will rust you. That’s what Lunar Jones tells the other kids at the relocation clinic. All of them were born on Mars, a planet that never wanted people in the first place. With resources scarce and hope even scarcer, it’s easy to get distracted looking up. After all, their ancestors descended from the stars. Martian history always starts with Earth. The first astronauts discovered that space was already occupied. Not by little green men or flying saucers. It was full of dragons.

Disturbing the established order will mean kicking over a fair number of rocks, although Mark, Valint, and the others might be surprised by what scurries forth underneath—and what uniform it's wearing when it steps into the light. Mark Tudor will make the title Peacemaker mean something once again, but to do that, he'll have to face the worst the galaxy has to offer. Death waits in the quiet moments. And sometimes, it is a soldier's loved ones that pay the greatest price.

Van is a veteran now, and the lessons are getting tougher. But so is he. When a ghost ship arrives in port, filled with the victims of a crime beyond imagination, Van and his crew will be drawn into a chase that goes beyond any star system the Peacemakers know.

With their wild vacation behind them, Hiro and his crew finally reunite the count and his granddaughter. Then it’s time for him to get cozy with his new robotic maid! He takes her in for an upgrade, which makes her stronger and sexier than ever. When duty calls, will Hiro and his heavily armed android be able to take down a cybernetic soldier and put the noble feud to rest?

Hiro blew them all away—literally—on his mercenary job clearing out a space pirate stronghold. Now, the military and a ton of smaller groups are all desperate to recruit him. Not only that, but a major biotech firm is salivating over his otherworldly DNA! All Hiro wants is to keep flying free with his beautiful companions, but how long can he dodge all the people who want to tie him down?

For the first time ever, Van has to deliver the remains of fallen comrades. At the Starsmith, he's presented with an opportunity to change the face of the war, even as Torina and Van begin planning for the ultimate shift in their galaxy: Parenthood. But first, the crew must prepare for an unexpected gift—a new, unknown fleet of ships, uncrewed and hidden deep out in the black. There's just one problem. They have the ships, but they need pilots and a secret base to create their fleet. For that job, they'll need an ally of unparalleled strength. The Schegith Protectorate.

For a moment, things seemed to be under control for Breq, the soldier who used to be a warship. Then a search of Athoek Station's slums turns up someone who shouldn't exist, and a messenger from the mysterious Presger empire arrives, as does Breq's enemy, the divided and quite possibly insane Anaander Mianaai—ruler of an empire at war with itself. Breq refuses to flee with her ship and crew, because that would leave the people of Athoek in terrible danger. The odds aren't good, but that's never stopped her before.

When Manchester Yards donates a new training vessel to the Merchant Officer Academy at Port Newmar, Alys Giggone recalls the Chernyakova. She wants Ishmael Wang and his crew to take a crew of cadets into the Deep Dark. They have to sort out the crews of two ships, figure out what lessons they need to teach, and who will get those lessons. Once they agree, the trouble starts.

Jazz pianist Gus Kitko expected to spend his final moments on Earth playing piano at the greatest goodbye party of all time, and maybe kissing rock star Ardent Violet, before the last of humanity is wiped out forever by the Vanguards—ultra-powerful robots from the dark heart of space, hell-bent on destroying humanity for reasons none can divine. But when the Vanguards arrive, the unthinkable happens—the mecha that should be killing Gus instead saves him. Suddenly, Gus's swan song becomes humanity's encore, as he is chosen to join a small group dedicated to saving humanity.

On humanity's first extra-solar mission, the exploration vessel Magellan, or, as she prefers, "Maggie", discovers an alien artifact. Deciding that finding advanced alien life is too important to ignore, Captain Allison Ridgeway chooses to return to Earth while ordering her crew to reverse engineer technology far beyond anything back home. Meanwhile, at mission control, the governments struggle to maintain the existence of aliens a secret while also combating bureaucracy, the military industrial complex, and everyone else who wants a piece of what could skyrocket humanity into a new technological age.

The universe is hungry. For power. For money. For war. And—revenge. Stripping osmium from across the stars, thieves will stop at nothing to fuel the nightmarish industry of Stolen Persons, their souls locked away in chips made of the rarest metal known. Among these thieves is Helum Gauss, the visionary criminal whose empire spans a hundred worlds. But his massive corporation, BeneStar, lost—badly—to Van and the Guild, and Gauss won’t take no for an answer.

Paul Mitchell wasn't sure how things could get any worse. Sure, he'd been booted from the Marine Corps and was forced to work as a freelancer because he couldn't hold down a regular job. He'd signed on with a mysterious crew of women, sailed across the void, and met interesting aliens and new people who tried to kill him. Against all odds, he'd somehow found himself stuck between a criminal psycho, Naval Intelligence, and a drop-dead gorgeous skipper who actually liked him. He'd even pulled a regular Prince Charming and saved a damsel in distress.

She longs to know what it’s like to live among normal humans and experience simple biological pleasures like consuming alcohol, kissing a boy, and — most importantly — eating chocolate. But her mother, the infamous astroshaman leader Kyla Moonrazor, is determined to get her back, even if it means sending a bounty hunter after her.

When Ishmael takes a crew of academy cadets into the Toe Holds, he's unprepared for the level of trouble green hands can get into. Meanwhile, their academy liaison discovers what can go wrong when you learn the wrong lessons and try to teach the wrong students. Will they all make it back to the academy before somebody accidentally takes a short walk out the airlock without a suit?

Ten thousand city-state habitats orbit the planet Yellowstone, forming a near-perfect democratic human paradise. But even utopia needs a police force. For the citizens of the Glitter Band that organization is Panoply, and the prefects are its operatives. Prefect Tom Dreyfus has a new emergency on his hands. Across the habitats and their hundred million citizens, people are dying suddenly and randomly, victims of a bizarre and unprecedented malfunction of their neural implants.

Humanity has reached the stars, joining the vast galactic community of alien species. But beyond the fringes of explored space lurk the Reapers, a race of sentient starships bent on "harvesting" the galaxy's organic species for their own dark purpose. The Illusive Man, leader of the pro-human black ops group Cerberus, is one of the few who know the truth about the Reapers.

Van's next mission has begun, and at the heart of it is the power to save lives. Meanwhile, a hungry galaxy looks to a brilliant young scientist for answers, making her the most wanted person in known space. After years of research, Adayluh Creel perfects a resource to feed sixteen races—or more—all with one golden plant capable of growing on the most hostile worlds. For her efforts, she wants nothing, but savage forces will seek to possess what she would give away for free, thus controlling the food source for billions of people.

The first mission to Europa – Jupiter's enigmatic moon – has landed, and humanity’s darkest fears are about to awaken. For years, mankind has speculated that this frozen world harbours a hidden ocean twice the size of all Earth’s oceans combined – an ocean potentially teeming with life. Driven by this tantalising mystery, they venture forth to unlock its secrets. But what they discover in the abyssal depths is far beyond anything they could have imagined.

Naval Officer Jack Samson thought a posting to the frontier of human-inhabited space was the death blow to his career. He couldn't have been more wrong. A routine inspection of a small merchant vessel leads to devastating loss and the discovery of strange, fascinating objects. As astonishing discoveries unfold, a mysterious and hostile ship proves that Samson has a competitor in unlocking the secrets of an ancient alien civilization and that humanity might not be alone in the galaxy after all.