Book picks similar to
Lost Mission by Joshua James


sci-fi
science-fiction
1st-in-series
aliens

The Atlantis Ship


A.C. Hadfield - 2015
    Galactic peace is threatened... Unless one man can find and stop the Atlantis ship 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. Facing a lack of resources, a ragtag crew, and aliens who want him dead, Mach must use all his leadership skills and experience if he’s to beat the overwhelming odds.His mission will take him across the galaxy and to uncharted dark areas of space. Failure to stop the Atlantis ship will not only mean the death of Mach and his crew, but the end of the Commonwealth and all of humanity. Somehow, Mach must find a way to solve an ancient mystery if he’s too succeed where everyone else before him has failed.

Day 115 on an Alien World


Jeannette Bedard - 2018
    Signing onto a colonizing mission heading to a new world promised a fresh start. Or at least that's what she'd thought. Strapped into a crashing colony ship, she realized how wrong she'd been.They hit the ground and the straight forward colonizing mission becomes a scramble for survival. Accidents keep happening—too many to blame on random bad luck. A trail of evidence leads Margo to a startling conclusion—one of her fellow colonists is a saboteur.Tomorrow is the colony's first communications window with Earth and their only chance to send a message home. Will Margo stop the saboteur before it’s too late? Find out now.

Star Corps


Ian Douglas - 2003
    But a research mission to the planet Ishtar has made a terrifying -- and fatal -- discovery: the Ahanu, ancestors of the former masters, live on, far from the reach of Earth -- born weapons and technology ... and tens of thousands of captive human souls still bow to their iron will. Now Earth's Interstellar Marine Expeditionary Unit must undertake a rescue operation as improbable as it is essential to humankind's future, embarking on a ten-year voyage to a hostile world to face an entrenched enemy driven by dreams of past glory and intent once more on domination. For those who, for countless generations, have known nothing but toil and subjugation must be granted, at all costs, the precious gift entitled to all of their star-traveling kind: freedom!

The Outback Stars


Sandra McDonald - 2007
    Lieutenant Jodenny Scott is a hero.  She has the medals and the scars to prove it. She's cooling her heels on Kookaburra, recovering from injuries sustained during the fiery loss of her last ship, the Yangtze, and she's bored -- so bored, in fact, that she takes a berth on the next ship out.  That's a mistake.  The Aral Sea isn't anyone's idea of a get-well tour. Jodenny's handed a division full of misfits, incompetents, and criminals.  She's a squared-away officer.  She thinks she can handle it all.  She's wrong.   Aral Sea isn't a happy ship.  And it's about to get a lot unhappier. As Aral Sea enters the Alcheringa -- the alien-constructed space warp that allows giant settler-ships to travel between worlds, away from all help or hope -- Jodenny comes face to face something powerful enough to dwarf even the unknown force that destroyed her last ship and left her with missing memories and bloody nightmares.  Lieutenant Jodenny Scott is about to be introduced to love. Author Sandra McDonald brings her personal knowledge of the military, and of the subtle interplay between men and women on deployment, to a stirring tale that mixes ancient Australian folklore with the colonization of the stars.

Saving Mars


Cidney Swanson - 2012
    Earth-Mars relations couldn’t be worse, and her brother is captured during the raid. Breaking rules of secrecy and no contact, Jess finds an ally in Pavel, nephew to a government official, but their friendship only makes more agonizing the choice before her: Save her brother or save her planet?

Independence


Alasdair C. Shaw - 2015
    Is the strange new warship they were fighting still out there? Will it come back for them? Commander Johnson faces a desperate race to get her destroyer back into action and save her crew.'Independence' is a short story (6000 words) in the Two Democracies universe.

Renegade Redhead


F.E. Arliss - 2017
    Her off-the-charts military testing gets her placed on an experimental ship bound for the outer reaches of known space. Once in the void, her willingness to question authority, uninhibited behavior, love of ancient ‘rock and roll’ music, and absolute sense of right and wrong, put her in disfavor with the ship’s crew. After rescuing an enormous alien war-dog, then blowing an alien slaver camp sky-high with her own brand of energy magic, Sasha is considered a freak of nature and disavowed. Set adrift in space, she collects a family of like-wise disenfranchised, yet talented, aliens and sets out to command her own future, ship, company, and planet. Nothing will stop this renegade redhead once she’s on a roll. For lovers of science fiction, science fiction and fantasy, chick lit, romance science fiction, romance action and adventure, space opera, womens fiction and anyone who admires a good woman doing what she wants.

Red Dot: Contact


Eugene Linn - 2015
    The question is: will there be any humans left when the aliens arrive? NASA scientist Claire Montague is a single mother in her thirties who’s leading a special team near Washington, DC, assigned to handle the approaching spaceship and report their findings to President Al Douthart. News of the impending ET encounter spreads after a tumultuous National Security Council meeting, causing social, economic, and political upheaval around the world. Just as governments are beginning to calm the chaos of their countries, thousands of unexplained red dots appear on the ground all over the globe. As the countdown continues, Claire and her colleagues struggle to make sense of the mysterious dots and determine what the extraterrestrials’ plan is once they arrive on Earth. But as the questions go unanswered and global tensions erupt into violence, President Douthart wonders who will be more harmful in the end—humans or aliens? Red Dot is a thought-provoking sci-fi thriller complete with a remarkable cast of characters and an intriguing portrayal of alien life. Expect the unexpected and you’ll still be surprised.

The Sagan Diary


John Scalzi - 2007
    Subterranean Press is proud to publish The Sagan Diary, a long novelette that for the first time looks at the worlds of the Hugo-nominated Old Man's War and its sequel The Ghost Brigades from the point of view of Lieutenant Jane Sagan, who in a series of diary entries gives her views on some of the events included in the series... and sheds new light into some previously unexplored corners. If you thought you knew Jane Sagan before, prepare to be surprised.

Interim


P.K. Lentz - 2015
    The crew of the sub-light freighter Lady of Chaos wants nothing to do with it. But when two fugitives, one a scientist, the other a rogue agent of the Social Engineering Service, the Interim's death squad, come aboard, Lady becomes the most wanted ship in the galaxy. And that's even before the Interim learns the true identity of her captain. The hunt is on, and its outcome will leave the universe forever changed. Interim is non-wartime, character driven space opera with plenty of action in the vein of Peter F. Hamilton, Charles Sheffield, Frederick Pohl, David Brin, and others.

Obsolete Theorem


Stan C. Smith - 2020
    A fight for survival. A bond between species.It wasn't possible, but then it happened…A Neanderthal's 47,000-year-old remains are found in Spain. That's not unusual, but positioned beside the woman's skeleton is something that shouldn't be there—a robotic drone. Lincoln Woodhouse has some explaining to do.When confronted with the evidence, Lincoln cannot deny that the drone is one of his own models. After all, he routinely jumps his drones into the past to collect environmental data. The problem is, this drone shouldn't even exist in Lincoln's universe. Everyone knows sending a drone into the past creates an alternate timeline.The implications of the discovery are staggering, and Lincoln is ordered to jump back in time to investigate, even though no human has ever done so before. Upon jumping, he and his team find themselves in a world of deadly creatures and savage beings.Amidst the primeval chaos, Lincoln encounters Skyra, a woman unlike anyone he has ever known. She is a skilled hunter and vicious fighter. She is not human, but she just might hold the key to humanity's future.

Alien Safari (Alien Safari, #1)


Robert Appleton - 2013
    Proceed beyond this point at your own risk.When celebrated Omicron detective Ferrix Vaughn is called in to investigate a deadly breach on Hesperidia, a protected planet full of indigenous wildlife, he doesn't know what to expect. The place used to be a tourist attraction, but the safari tours were discontinued long ago due to rampant poaching. Only a handful of researchers live there now, including Jan Corbija, the young woman who reported the breach. The deeper Vaughn digs, the more the evidence seems to point to a recent raid on a biotech facility in a nearby system. Whatever was stolen from there, it's attracted the attention of major political players in a time of war across the colonies. Vaughn suspects the secret is on Hesperidia, in the hands of the two fugitives who fled the murder scene. If he wants to get to them first, he's going to need Jan's help. Her Alien Safari tour will have to reopen for this final excursion. But to survive it, they'll both need to face their demons, for a predator far deadlier than man roams the wilds of Hesperidia. And this is its killing season. This way for the ride of your life.