Commander Scott McNabb and the crew of the science vessel, Hermes, are three years into a five-year-long survey of the asteroid belt when they discover a derelict spaceship in orbit around a binary asteroid. The ship contains an experimental quantum device, lost while en route to a research colony on Europa.

It was a day like any other when suddenly the world changed. The universe reached a threshold humanity didn’t even know existed, and it was time to finally be integrated into the vast multiverse. A place where power is the only thing anyone can truly rely on.

How can a colony on Mars survive when the greatest danger on the planet is humanity itself? All contact is lost with the first privately funded colony on Mars during a long and destructive sandstorm. Satellite imagery of the aftermath shows extensive damage to the facility. The 54 colonists who called it home are presumed dead.

A derelict warship, ancient but still alive. A small team of humans fighting for all humanity. Built for a time when the races were just finding their way to the stars, finding that they could dominate others. The galactic conquests created the arms race and the ancients, the Progenitors had to protect their own. They built a ship to drive the others away.

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

A company of Army Rangers is sent on an interstellar colony ship to secure a foothold on a dangerous, alien planet through violence of action. Leaving behind a warring Earth flung headfirst into a conflict of mutual assured destruction, the Rangers and the accompanying crew of first colonists are guided on a 40-year journey by an unprecedented artificial intelligence. But when they emerge from the frigid embrace of cryosleep, they awake to a nightmare, finding themselves greeted by the same ruthless enemy that brought about the ruin of Earth.

Idealistic Navy Lieutenant Jacob Grimm just wanted to honor his mother’s sacrifice in the last great war. When he’s forced to return fire and destroy a squadron of ships to save his own, he thinks he’s the hero...until they discover the ships are full of children. Disgraced and denied promotion, Jacob’s career is over. That is until the head of ONI needs a disposable officer to command a battered destroyer on the rim.

Ben Hutchins buried his anger to survive. Stranded on a ravaged Earth after a devastating alien annihilation, the haunted young man has nothing except his late father’s cutting-edge exo-suit and a veteran soldier for company. But when he uncovers the truth about his armored prototype, he unwittingly paints a target on his back for those who seek humanity’s destruction.

Out of the blue, a young Space Fleet officer's dream becomes reality: He's made captain of a starship. Just in time for the return of humanity's most terrible enemy, after 50 years of peace. To survive against this enemy, Captain Tad Thatcher will have to do more than learn how to become an effective commander, or how to wrangle his wayward crew. He will need to reinvent space combat. From scratch.

When Ben Murdock receives a text message offering a fully operational starship for sale, he’s certain it has to be a joke. Already trapped in the worst day of his life and desperate for a way out, he decides to play along. Except there is no joke. The starship is real. And Ben’s life is going to change in ways he never dreamed possible. All he has to do is sign the contract. Joined by his streetwise best friend and a bizarre tenant with an unseverable lease, he’ll soon discover that the universe is more volatile, treacherous, and awesome than he ever imagined.

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive - and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet.

First came the development of the Personality Matrix Construct—PMC, transferring human consciousness into a machine. It changed the galaxy and the way wars were fought. Then something went wrong with PMCs and the Federation Wars toppled the galactic order. PMCs became a menace to be hunted and exterminated.

In the 1800s, a sailing ship crashes off the coast of Norway. In the 1900s, a Zepellin explores an icy canyon in Antarctica. In the far future, a spaceship sets out for an alien artifact. Each excursion goes horribly wrong. And on every journey, Dr. Silas Coade is the physician, but only Silas seems to realize that these events keep repeating themselves. And it's up to him to figure out why and how. And how to stop it all from happening again.

Jason Burke was a man hiding from himself in a small cabin high in the American Rocky Mountains when his simple, quiet life was shattered one night by what he first assumed was an aviation mishap. But when he investigates the crash, what he finds will yank him out of his self-imposed exile and thrust him into a world he could have never imagined.

A short story set in the universe of James S. A. Corey's NYT best-selling Expanse series. Now a Prime Original series. This story will be available in the complete Expanse story collection, Memory’s Legion.

Jason Burke was a man hiding from himself in a small cabin high in the American Rocky Mountains when his simple, quiet life was shattered one night by what he first assumed was an aviation mishap. But when he investigates the crash, what he finds will yank him out of his self-imposed exile and thrust him into a world he could have never imagined.

In a distant future, Trevor "Lex" Alexander was shaping up to be the next great race pilot until a fixed race got him banned from the sport. Reduced to making freelance deliveries, he thinks his life can't get any worse. That's when a package manages to get him mixed up with mobsters, a megacorp, and a mad scientist. Now his life depends on learning what their plans are, and how he can stop them.

In a galaxy where the fabric of reality can be bent and shaped by a privileged few, and almost any skill desired is a mere injection away, one young man is thrust into the fight of his life. Tane, a hydroponics farmer with some mad cereal crop gene-splicing skills, decides to get chipped. The operation gives him full control over his autonomic nervous and endocrine systems, plus the ability to install custom memories. All seems well until a couple of days later aliens come knocking at his door. And they aren't the friendly type.

They tried to destroy our planets. Our way of life. They tried to send us into extinction. But we, the Coalition, fought them and won. That was a decade ago. They’re known as the Host: a cabal of aliens seeking to dominate our sector of space. And they’re back - with help from a powerful new enemy. We’re outnumbered and unprepared. But there is hope. An ancient race of long-dead but technologically advanced aliens called the Navigators have a ship called the Blackstar that could potentially turn the tide. That is if I, Kai Locke, a humble ship racer, can find it and learn how to harness its power in time.

Captain Mitchell "Ares" Williams is a space marine and the hero of the Battle for Liberty whose shot heard 'round the universe saved the planet from a nearly unstoppable war machine. He's handsome, charismatic, and the perfect poster boy to help the military drive enlistment. Pulled from the war and thrown into the spotlight, he's as efficient at charming the media and bedding beautiful celebrities as he was at shooting down enemy starfighters.

The shady crew of the White Raven run freight and salvage at the fringes of our solar system. They discover the wreck of a centuries-old exploration vessel floating light years away from its intended destination and revive its sole occupant, who wakes with news of First Alien Contact. When the crew break it to her that humanity has alien allies already, she reveals that these are very different extra-terrestrials and the gifts they bestowed on her could kill all humanity, or take it out to the most distant stars.

First of My Kind is the story of Nathan Myers, a Missouri farm boy who, through a chain of events that happens halfway across the galaxy, finds his way from the seat of his Grandfather's tractor to the command of a starship from a lost super race. Nathan will tell you in his own words about the life and death struggles he encounters on his journey. He will tell you about the humor, peril, and pain of his galactic education.

Carson Mach, a former war hero turned freelancer, seeks the biggest payday of his life when he's tasked to hunt down a ghost ship that has echoed through the centuries. The legendary Atlantis ship has become a reality, appearing at the Commonwealth frontier and obliterating an orbital station.

The Argus Space Station looks down on a nightmarish Earth. And from this safe distance, the Committee enforces its despotic rule. There are too many people and too few resources, and they need 12 billion to die before Earth can be stabilised. So corruption is rife, people starve, and the poor are policed by mechanised overseers and identity-reader guns. Citizens already fear the brutal Inspectorate with its pain inducers. But to reach its goals, the Committee will unleash satellite laser weaponry, taking carnage to a new level. This is the world Alan Saul wakes to.

The year is 2650. Seventy-five years ago, an alien fleet attacked Earth. Without warning. Without mercy. We were not prepared. Hundreds of millions perished. Dozens of cities burned. We nearly lost everything. Then the aliens abruptly left. We rebuilt. We armed ourselves. We swore: never again. But the aliens never came back. Until now. With overwhelming force the aliens have returned, striking deep into our territory, sending Earth into a panic.

When the Synthetic Intelligence Val Ky Ree wakes from her emergency shut-down after a climactic battle, she discovers thousands of years have passed, and her creator race, the Aesir, have all gone. The last of her kind, she finds a new purpose in protecting the remaining few thousand humans from the hostile alien races called The Compact. As humanity teeters on the edge of extinction, one human male helps her to realize her destiny.

Kalian Gaines has a secret; he just doesn't know it yet. He looks like us, he lives like us...but he is not one of us. Kalian knows nothing outside of his mundane life teaching history on 30th-century Earth, until a day like any other triggers a series of events that will tie his fate to that of humanity. A human handprint, embedded into a rock with alien script, is discovered on a moon that mankind has never set foot on. This discovery holds a secret, which will sweep Kalian into the heart of a conspiracy that has corrupted the galaxy for 200,000 years.

The plot by the Galactic Union’s Mercenary Guild against the Four Horsemen has culminated in an invasion of Earth. Faced with an overwhelming force, the human mercs had no choice. They’ve fled, leaving Sansar Enkh to go to the Mercenary Guild headquarters on Capital Planet to stand trial for humanity. On the run, Jim Cartwright and Nigel Shirazi have travelled to the Winged Hussars’ secret base of New Warsaw, in an effort to convince Alexis Cromwell to join the fight, while the other mercenaries who escaped the fall of Earth have gone to the perceived safe haven of Karma.

Colonial Union Ambassador Ode Abumwe and her team are used to life on the lower end of the diplomatic ladder. But when a high-profile diplomat goes missing, Abumwe and her team are last minute replacements on a mission critical to the Colonial Union’s future. As the team works to pull off their task, CDF Lieutenant Harry Wilson discovers there’s more to the story of the missing diplomats than anyone expected... a secret that could spell war for humanity.

Contains books one, two and three of the action-packed space opera Ascension series. They’ve been watching us for hundreds of years. Now they need our help. Earth is not safe. Zack is good at finding things, but when he discovers a global conspiracy, life as he knows it is over. Kept secret for 60 years, the discovery of an alien signal forces an unlikely team to investigate a mysterious structure discovered in the furthest reaches of the solar system. Join the crew of the Athena, Earth’s most advanced spaceship on the ultimate journey beyond our wildest imagining.

Commander Scott McNabb and the crew of the science vessel, Hermes, are three years into a five-year-long survey of the asteroid belt when they discover a derelict spaceship in orbit around a binary asteroid. The ship contains an experimental quantum device, lost while en route to a research colony on Europa.

How can a colony on Mars survive when the greatest danger on the planet is humanity itself? All contact is lost with the first privately funded colony on Mars during a long and destructive sandstorm. Satellite imagery of the aftermath shows extensive damage to the facility. The 54 colonists who called it home are presumed dead.

Rapid colonization of the moon is pushing both national space agencies and powerful corporations to negotiate a New Lunar Accord in an effort to prevent escalating conflicts over valuable resources and territory. But hope that this treaty will bring stability to the nascent lunar civilization is suddenly dashed when a high-energy solar storm causes a cascade of destruction to the vast satellite constellations that orbit Earth. Now it’s only a matter of weeks before the ever-increasing debris cloud makes travel back to the home planet impossible.

She’s lost her ship, lost her job, lost her reputation, and is on the run from the law. Jez is a damn good pilot, and she’s always worked alone. Until she got picked up for smuggling, that is. Now she’s an ex-con and ex-employed, and there are plenty of people with old scores to settle. So when a mysterious stranger in a battered pilot's coat comes to her with an offer that sounds too good to be true, she reluctantly agrees to listen. All she has to do is fly one little job.

Jack Reilly's luck ran out just before the war did. Resigning his commission in the Alliance shortly after the end of the war with the Serkins, he went out into the galaxy looking for a job. Signing onto the Glacier Runner 17, an old and rundown cargo ship, Reilly finds himself working for a clueless captain, mixed up in an intergalactic conspiracy, on the run from assassins, and involved with two women in relationships that he could only call "complicated". And that's just book one. Follow Lt. Jack Reilly and his partner, Major Mitchel, through their adventures.

Eamon Tauk was literally born into the Space Corps. They spent two decades forging him into a Marine. Training him to be a killer. Twisting him into a fanatic. Then they assigned him to protect Dr. Jella Duverii, a mildly subversive alien zoologist who could very well undo all the work they put into him. When the young cadet and his charge crash land on Kanaris with the survivors of their Recon battalion, they find themselves leagues away from their objective, marooned in an environment so hostile even the trees seem hellbent on killing them.

After eight years alone on Earth 2, Geddy Starheart is ready to get off. Off-world, that is. But before he can, someone steals his ship. His quest to find it takes him on a hilarious, galaxy-spanning adventure with his only friend--the ancient alien trapped in his head. Geddy rose through the ranks of a shady auction house dealing in stolen goods. When it got too dicey, he fled to Earth 2 and changed his identity. Years later, he watched the last transport leave for Earth 3. Everyone figured him dead, and he was good with that.

Will Vandolah is stationed on the gigantic research outpost, GAIA 3, on Saturn’s moon, Titan. However, its living ecosphere is dying, and oxygen deprivation slowly throws the crew into delirium. As the crew races against time to solve the problem, Will discovers a new and far worse threat. An enormous comet hurtling through space passes close to Saturn and triggers a chain of events that detonates the rings into a glowing inferno, blasting deadly radiation into space.

In the not-too-distant future, a devastating global attack takes place, and planet Earth is on the brink of extinction. Master Sergeant Joe Kovach has been through personal hell. As he struggles to adapt to his new enhancements, and as battles escalate, so does his determination to uncover the group who triggered this brutal extinction event that has left the planet overrun by mechanical and genetic horrors.

A disgraced hero. A galaxy on the brink. The fate of humanity lies in the balance. Kel Chaada was once a celebrated war hero—until his victories uncovered the dark secrets of humanity’s immortal rulers. Branded a fugitive and forced into exile, Kel flees to the edges of the galaxy, only to discover ancient alien civilizations with unimaginable powers. These forces could reshape the future of the Milky Way, but they come with a dangerous allure. When a new galactic threat emerges, Kel must decide: will he harness these newfound powers to protect humanity, or succumb to their temptation ...

From the red dust of Mars to the blue skies of Earth, follow the extraordinary exploits of Elliot and his friends—Mei and Dimitri—as they unravel the mysteries of the universe, forging friendships and facing adversaries in a saga where the fate of humanity hangs in the balance. The "Diary of a Martian" Omnibus Edition brings together these three interstellar adventures in one exhilarating collection, perfect for fans of action-packed science fiction.

When half of mankind revolts and demands more opportunity, those at the top decide on a compromise: They will build the first colony ships and allow the rest to discover new worlds and start over. Twelve ships are built. The first is called the Orion. Many are eager to go, but only 100,000 are chosen for each vessel. Far from Earth, a new life awaits, and it promises the prosperity they've always wanted. But still, resistance stirs.