To celebrate the release of Chicks in Tank Tops (edited by Jason Cordova), we’re offering discounts on the classic anthologies edited by Esther Friesner that started it all!

Mankind eventually hopped its way across the nearby stars to Lalande 21185, only to find a few dead, rocky worlds bathed in radiation and a system-wide debris field that made navigating all but the edges of the system hazardous for large spacecraft. But the debris was more than just stray asteroids and space junk. It was wreckage. A war had occurred in the system. But despite hundreds of scavenger crews searching the system for scrap, no complete ships were ever found—until now. And if you enjoy “Black Box,” check out more stories of ancient aliens in Worlds Long Lost, edited by Christopher Ruocchio and Sean CW Korsgaard here.

Black Box

Sean CW Korsgaard

When mankind tells the story of our first message from an alien civilization, I hope they’ll remember that it began with two old soldiers at a diner, and ends with two old soldiers at a bar.

With the benefit of hindsight, it’s funny to think it all began with breakfast.

I should have known that Alan wanted something when he offered to treat me to a hot meal at Dino’s Cantina, one of the rare greasy spoons that serves real food on Flotsam Station. Alan’s a decent sort for a scrapper, but he could have been trying to talk me into selling him a kidney if it meant avoiding another meal in the station mess hall.

Credit where it’s due, the man knew to wait until we’d finished eating to try and pitch me on anything. The eggs were runny, and the bacon overcooked, but considering it was the first meal that I had eaten in weeks that wasn’t freeze dried, vat grown, or squeezed from a tube, I savored every bite. Mopping up the last of the yolk with a hunk of dark bread, I decided to finally broach the topic.

“Alan, I know you didn’t ask to meet just to swap war stories, and if you’re springing for real eggs and pork, it’s got to be one hell of an ask,” I said. “So, what do you want from me?”

“Straight to business then, eh Murph?” Alan said, running a hand across his scalp, his short red hair bristling. “Officially, our techie was injured on the job working our current patch of the debris field, and you’re her replacement until we can decide whether there’s enough worth a damn in our current patch to file a claim.”

If I weren’t more observant, I might have taken it personally that I was essentially being offered scut work. Luckily, we’d done this dance before.

Baen Books has signed a contract with author Christopher Ruocchio to publish the final two books in his internationally award-winning Sun Eater series, as well as for a first look deal for Ruocchio’s next series.

We’re happy to announce an easier way to deliver our Ebooks directly from Baen.com to your favorite Ereader. You can now email EPUB files directly to your device from our site—no download necessary!

Andy Presby is a former U.S. Navy nuclear submarine officer and current aerospace engineer with degrees in space systems engineering, astronautics, and physics. This fictional-non-fiction article is set in the world of Joelle Presby’s The Dabare Snake Launcher. Joelle is a former U.S. Navy nuclear engineering officer, a former business consultant, and current spouse to Andy Presby.

Form TCG1116-B: Annual TCG Employee Crazy Idea Competition

Proposal #: 3214

Proposer: Omer Ehrlich, Intern

Current Management Rotation: Oral Hygiene Products

To: John-Philip Jeffy, CEO TCG

Title: REDUCED COST SPACE LAUNCH SYSTEM

Benefit of Proposal: The space between the Earth and Moon is filled with a variety of spacecraft performing many functions vital to modern society. The sheer number of spacecraft, the range of orbits they cover, and the diversity of their activities have outpaced predictions of even the most optimistic of space enthusiasts from before the Second Space Race. This abundance challenges the space industry’s capability to resupply, repair and provide other services to in-orbit customers. While large reusable heavy lift rockets have provided the most economic way to move high volume payloads to orbit for a generation or more, that delivery method is suboptimal for multiple point orbital deliveries. This proposal identifies a new system capable of reliable repeatable launch of payloads up to one ton into any Earth-centered orbit on-demand to meet this need and propel TCG to the forefront of this emerging market segment.