Showing results for "Six" in First Contact

For Mark Caldwell, an unsatisfying life was about to take a turn both terrifying and exhilarating as his fate took an unimaginable turn. When Mark took his aisle seat aboard United flight 4382, he was ignorant of three facts. The fellow passenger in the window seat was named Joseph Colsco. Neither of them would ever set foot on Earth again. They both would be cast naked on an alien planet.

Following their successful escape from Androchida Prime’s capital city, Sir Chuck and the rest of the Phantoms find themselves mystified by unsettling news. The leader of the Blood Guard resistance, famed General Cordan, has defected to the AE. But while many doubt the veracity of the development, more pressing intel awaits: the empire is planning to invade the Sci-Rung home world.

The megacity of New Montreal is under constant threat by the Antithesis, aliens who have transformed the landscape to produce swarms of creatures that feed on everything in their path. The city's infrastructure is in disrepair, and the politicians and corporations responsible for its maintenance have been slacking off, leaving angry citizens to fend for themselves.

Paolo Bacigalupi's debut collection demonstrates the power and reach of the science-fiction short story. Social criticism, political parable, and environmental advocacy lie at the center of Paolo's work. Each of the stories herein is at once a warning and a celebration of the tragic comedy of the human experience.

By the time Grey had come back with an army of new allies, the Legion had been defeated. Many an Incarnator had fallen as heroes, leaving the City on the brink of destruction. Thousands of souls still trapped inside the Cube are trying to break free from their extradimensional prison while the Star watches impassively from its celestial heights.

With The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Six, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and 33 of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2020.

The apocalypse has arrived. Now, it's down to control. Who will control the rich resources of a newly inducted world? Multiple systems, sects, guilds, and incursion parties are all aiming for that control. But Silas believes there is more to control than just land and resources. He aims to win over the hearts and souls of the people while making Earth the strongest it can be.

It's been over a year since the System came to Earth, bringing blood and monsters in equal measure. Having left Whitehorse, John and his team travel down to British Columbia, running into new dangers from aliens and humans alike. Faced with new challenges and new enemies, John and his friends seek to free human settlements from Galactic control in North America.

His name is Taylor McFadden, survivor of eighty-three trips into the ZOO. Now, he's retired, and yet his country needs his skills to save people in the country he calls home.

In Saucer Holler, the crew come back to Earth to have some babies and catch up on some well-deserved R&R. Babies attract mother-in-laws, though, and Bob has one for the books. The crew of the Gene are off to take Joanna’s new friend home in Roo the Day. Finding derelicts with no survivors gets them down, and one of them brings Topper to a crisis of conscience. When they find a ship that looks like Zoom built it, Bob hires the builder.

Casmir has survived against impossible odds, and now he longs to return home. But an invasion force is blockading the Kingdom’s wormhole gate, and it would be suicidal to fly through it now. Worse, his family and friends are stuck on the other side, with hostile forces attacking their home world. The only way Casmir can help is to find out who’s behind the invasion...and convince him to stop. But Casmir isn’t known for his ability to strong-arm people, and this is one enemy who won’t be won over by his friendly demeanor.

"Hiermit ergeht folgender Befehl: - Verbindung der Militär-Orbitale entsprechend des Himmelsangriffsplans. - Start eines synchronisierten Angriffs auf den Schwarzen Mond, sobald dieser in Reichweite kommt. - Völlige Entleerung der Absolute-Reaktoren sämtlicher Raketen zur Sicherstellung des Vernichtungsvorgangs." Als Grey mit einer Armee neuer Verbündeter zurückkehrte, war die Legion besiegt. Viele Inkarnatoren hatten den Heldentod erlitten, und die Stadt stand kurz vor der völligen Zerstörung.

Millennia of conflict between humans and mechs have driven the human race to near-extinction. Now, as the fierce AI mechs begin their final assault on mankind, it soon becomes apparent that three men – three generations in a family of voyagers – are their targets. Toby Bishop, his father, Killeen Bishop, and his grandfather, Nigel Walmsley, each carry a piece of the lethal secret that can destroy their enemies. But hunted through space and time by relentless assassins, they have no idea that they possess the only weapon that can save humanity.

Every bureaucracy has a rhythm, even the Department of Extraterrestrial and Alien Defense (D.E.A.D.). Dr. Greg Schorn has gotten used to that rhythm: go on assignment, take down a government-created alien hybrid, write up a report, rinse, and repeat. Not that there's no danger. Rounding up the escapees comes with more than a little risk. But Greg trusts the people around him, especially Mitch Haldron. At the D.E.A.D. Mitch has pulled him out of the fire more times than he can count. But everything is about to change: Mitch, solid, dependable, downright boring Mitch, has a secret.

Contains books 5-8 of the sci-fi survival horror series Reality Bleed, written by best-selling authors J.Z. Foster and Justin M. Woodward.

Wally K. Daly was a prolific, award-winning dramatist, whose writing credits included Casualty, Juliet Bravo and Doctor Who. He wrote 38 radio plays during his 30-year career, across a range of genres including comedy, horror and science fiction. This collection includes his best-known SF serial, The Scream Trilogy, and three other thrilling sci-fi dramas.

Mazak is a weary cyborg mercenary about to settle his debt to a deadly trade lord. He is furious when one last job is demanded of him—to deliver a captive human female with an encrypted message inscribed on her arm to a dangerous space station before the message fades from her skin. It should be straightforward, but Mazak’s outdated cyborg systems are malfunctioning, making him vulnerable. To make matters worse, the female lights a fire in both of Mazak’s synthetic hearts—something he did not think possible since becoming part machine.

Firestarter does her best to fit in on the Gene, but it's a long jump from stone-tipped spears to starships. Janet and the other girls do their best to help her fit in. Eve and Aika have trouble getting to know a new AI, and Topper's past brings a new problem for the crew to work on. Come along while they work it all out.

Captain Tom Thrush is patrolling the Octagon Rift when his ship is attacked by a black destroyer that seems to predict his every move. Outgunned and outmaneuvered, he flees in a crippled ship to the only sanctuary he can reach—a den of thieves and spies called Lotus Station. His ship will be broken up for scrap. Half the crew are casualties. The rest are scattering, leaving Tom stuck on Lotus. As the black destroyer hunts down local freighters, Tom becomes obsessed with tracking it down and taking revenge.

Former Marine Raider Max Ahlgren has spent years hunting the four men who killed his family. One target remains: Burt Jarvis, the infamous Accident Man, mastermind behind the murders. After losing Jarvis in the jungles of Brazil, Max is contacted by a mysterious tech billionaire who claims to know the elusive killer’s whereabouts. To receive the information, Max must secure a quantum research facility taken over by a rogue engineer named Rhodes. When Rhodes escapes into the past, Max finds himself in a chase across time to prevent the present from being catastrophically altered.