Save on a claymore spread of ebooks—and experience the legendary “Wrath of Kratman” firsthand! Retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and creator of the best-selling, hard-hitting, and militarily astute Carerra science fiction series and more metes out retribution to those who would thwart the ways of vengeance and justice!

To all of those who expressed interest and support for Baen's Bar in recent weeks, we are happy to announce it is back on-line, though with some changes. Baen is handing the Bar over to its users, and will henceforth be run by SFF Forums, LLC, and may be found at https://www.baensbar.net. Returning users will be able to use the Bar as usual, but new members will have to make a purchase at baen.com before they can log in. (Note: New users will not have to buy a book; there is a Bar tipjar option so they may contribute to the maintenance of the forum).

—Toni Weisskopf for SFF Forums

With Travis Taylor, Les is the co-author of Saving Proxima (book one of a three-part series), a new Baen universe in which this story is set. If you enjoyed this story, you might want to read Les’s 2018 novel, Mission to Methone, or the forthcoming, The Spacetime War. You can learn more about Les on his website: www.lesjohnsonauthor.com

December 1, 2086

Charlie Shattles looked at himself in the hotel mirror and did not like what he saw. Here he was, a man in his early fifties with more than enough money saved to retire early and recline on a beach somewhere studying heavenly bodies. Yet he was in a run-down hotel near Zvyozdny gorodok, Russia, freezing his butt off because the owners of place refused to turn up the heat beyond what was needed to keep the pipes from bursting. Global warming or not, Russia in the wintertime was cold. Damn cold. But he was on a job and the cold and other inconveniences did not really matter. He liked putting the pieces together and getting to the bottom of a case. In cases like this, if murder were involved, then ninety percent of the time the motive was money, sex, or power. He corrected himself; the ninety percent was for men, who committed the most murders. If the perp was a woman, then he could add jealousy to the list and be within the same ninety percent statistic. For this case, he had not even determined if it was murder. Time would tell.

Jim Beall (BS-Math, MBA, PE) has been a nuclear engineer for over forty years, a war gamer for over fifty, and an avid reader of science fiction for even longer. His experience in nuclear engineering and power systems began as a naval officer. Experience after the USN includes design, construction, inspection, enforcement, and assessment with a nuclear utility, an architect engineering firm, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC).

Stars recycle and so must we if we are to travel between them.

Stars have practiced recycling from near the beginning

The ordinary matter of the early universe was mostly hydrogen with some helium. Population III stars formed out of that primordial mix (with trace amounts of lithium and beryllium) and fused more hydrogen into helium. Those stars had comparatively short lifespans ending in supernovas (or other stellar events such as becoming black holes) and spreading heavier elements into space where they—along with hydrogen—became part of Population II stars.

Baen Books announces the top ten finalists for the 2021 Baen Fantasy Adventure Award for best original fantasy short story.

Contest Jointly Sponsored by Baen Books and The National Space Society Honors Positive Fictional Takes on Space Exploration