Space Adventures #49

A space prospector's dreams of finding love and returning to Earth seem to come true when he crashes on an uncharted planet and meets a beautiful woman—but as the ship approaches home, the hypnotic veil begins to lift, revealing a terrifying truth about his companion and the alien civilization behind her. Nate Carstairs must make an impossible choice between the girl he thought he loved and the world he's sworn to protect.

A crippled Earth cruiser flees the Kiimian forces and makes an emergency landing on an uncharted planet, only to discover its entire civilization frozen in a state of suspended animation. When Barth and Janis explore the abandoned cities and laboratories, they uncover a crucial secret that could change the course of the war—but the Kiimians have tracked them down, and time is running out to act on what they've found.

When Jon Clendon, astrogator of an Earth exploration vessel, wanders too far from his crew on a seemingly barren diamond-like planet, he becomes trapped beneath a crystal slab—only to discover the world harbors an extraordinary secret. Transparent beings of crystalline form, transformed a thousand years ago by catastrophic planetary shifts, reveal themselves to the stranded human and offer him a choice that could change both their worlds. As Clendon's expertise becomes invaluable to their desperate mission, he finds himself drawn into a civilization that exists in the hidden depths below the glittering surface.

When a space-scout is catastrophically damaged in an outlaw solar system, Captain Ward Langley, Astrogator Ben McGee, and Weapons Specialist Anne Loring find themselves stranded and at the mercy of a mysterious artificial vessel—one piloted by a being bent on revenge against Earth. Captured and separated, they discover the brutal truth: Commodore Waan, an ancient alien whose people were destroyed by Earth centuries ago, now commands a pirate stronghold fueled by hatred and enslaved prisoners. With the odds stacked impossibly against them, Langley and his crew must find a way to expose Waan's operation before the tyrant's vendetta claims more lives.