This story is set within the world of June hardcover Governor, by David Weber and Richard Fox. Governor, is a new novel in the Ascent to Empire series which includes the Weber novel Path of the Fury.

Best-selling author David Weber is the creator of the Honor Harrington series. Additional Honorverse collaborations include the spin-off miniseries Manticore Ascendant with Timothy Zahn; and with Eric Flint, Crown of Slaves and Cauldron of Ghosts contribute to his illustrious list of New York Times and international bestseller lists. Weber is also the creator of the Oath of Swords fantasy series. Weber’s collaborations include the Starfire Series with Steve White, the Empire of Man Series with John Ringo, the Multiverse Series with Linda Evans and Joelle Presby, The Gordian Division series with Jacob Holo.  He lives in South Carolina.

Richard Fox is the winner of the 2017 Dragon Award for Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy novel. He is the author of The Ember War Saga, a military science fiction and space opera series, and other novels in the military history, thriller, and space opera genres. Fox graduated from the United States Military Academy and spent ten years on active duty in the United States Army. He deployed on two combat tours to Iraq and received the Combat Action Badge, Bronze Star, and Presidential Unit Citation. He now lives in fabulous Las Vegas with his incredible family.

Visitors to Port Montclair had to remember three things: Head down, mouth shut, and no questions asked.

The planet Montclair had an appealing enough name, but the world was not a “clear mountain,” but a desert with hurricane force winds and blown sand that would scour anyone down to the bone within minutes. Being aboard the orbiting station was a bit safer, but not by much.

A dark-skinned spacer in a longshoreman’s cheap vac suit and worn equipment harness sat on a barstool overlooking the station’s "walking street." This part of the promenade was one of the first stops for spacers after months in vacuum. The many bars and clubs promised to exchange pay for all manner of pleasure—human, alien, and robotic.

Silas took a sip of his beer, which was awful but at least cold. The street was busy with scruffy spacers. The foot traffic had doubled in the past ten minutes, which lined up with the expected arrival of passengers and crew from the Arizona Bay.

The pedestrians and customers of the walking street were almost all human. A few Quarn lumbered past in their heavy atmosphere suits, though, and a single Rishathan matriarch—three meters tall, with a saurian-looking head and jaws that could effortlessly amputate a human arm—stalked down the middle of the street with all the arrogance of her kind, accompanied by three of her harem. The three males were barely a third her height, with froglike eyes, pale green skin with flat scales, and body language that was decidedly timid.

Rishathan males wouldn’t last long in a fight with the rough and tumble types aboard Port Montclair, but bothering the males would surely bring the matriarch's wrath, and no one wanted that kind of trouble.

Inspired by real science. Gritty. Realistic. That’s hard science fiction. To celebrate the awe-inspiring, wonder-producing hard science fiction of great Baen authors such as Patrick Chiles, Travis S. Taylor, and—of course—Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes, here are amazing ebook discount selections for June!

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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

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.

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