Showing results for "Dust" in First Contact

For Flight Engineer Cynthia Han and her fellow astronauts aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 81 has proved as mundane as space travel ever gets. Yes, this would be Cynthia’s final NASA mission, for reasons she has so far kept from the rest of the crew; and yes, the latest billionaire “space tourist” has managed to irritate everyone on board. Still, none of them could have asked for a smoother experience. Until the morning they wake up to silence. All communication with Earth, gone.

When Sarah Long gets the message that her sister is alive and needs rescuing, she packs a bag with survival gear, loads a coat with six kinds of weapons, and hopes her pregnancy won't slow her down. It's been three years since the ancient, city-sized ship was discovered. And three years since it turned half the planet into deserts of black dust. Sarah's treacherous journey will cross continents and an ocean, as well as the lines between Earther and Alien, friend and foe. The dangers, though, go beyond the brutal reality of the lawless world she travels.

On the intergalactic trading station William S. Burroughs, profit is king and aliens are the kingmakers. Earthlings have bowed to their superior power and weaponry, though the aliens—praying-mantis-like Grodos with pheromonal speech and gargantuan Collosaurs with a limited sense of humor—kindly allow them to do business through properly controlled channels. That’s where our hero comes in, name of Raymond. As part of the android police force, this positronic robot detective navigates both worlds, human and alien, keeping order and evaporating wrongdoers.

In this thrilling selection of weird and wonderful short stories, Jon Culshaw, John Leeson, Terry Molloy, Louise Jameson, Dan Starkey and Geoffrey Beevers read seven stories from the legendary Doctor Who Annual of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.