Beyond the Frontier: Dreadnaught
John G. Hemry
 Admiral John "Black Jack" Geary returns from his honeymoon to take command of the Alliance fleet located at Varandal and meet with members of the Alliance Grand Council. He arrives just in time to prevent a military coup by the Fleet after Fleet Headquarters brings courts-martial charges against many of the commanding officers of the fleet. Following the meeting with members of the Grand Council, Geary is tasked with taking the newly created Alliance First Fleet to investigate the alien race, known as the "enigma race", located on the farside of Syndic space. While preparing for the mission Geary receives bizarre orders to transfer sailors with knowledge of hypernet gates and release control over some of his fast fleet auxiliaries. While Geary refuses to do either, he begins to question the true motives of the government and what they wish him to accomplish on his mission. The arrival of Victoria Rione brings new orders for Geary, requiring him to make a detour into Syndic territory to liberate some Alliance prisoners of war. Rione also informs Geary that the government still sees him and the fleet as a threat and wants both of them far away from Alliance space as possible. Geary orders the fleet into Syndic space, arriving in the Dunai star system where the POWs are being held. After the local Syndic CEO refuses to hand over the POWs without compensation, Geary orders the marines to liberate the POWs by force. The POWs turn out to all be VIPs, many in the mold of Captain Falco and some challenge Geary's right to command the First Fleet. One of them turns out to be Rione's presumed dead husband, which causes drama for Geary after he learns of his past relationship with Rione but they later get on good terms. Arriving at Midway, Geary begins to suspect that the local CEO is planning to declare independence from the Syndicate Worlds. He also gains from that CEO knowledge of how to prevent the alien race from remote detonating a hypernet gate, which causes Geary also to doubt the true reasons for why the Alliance government ordered him to carry out his mission into alien space. Arriving in enigma race territory, Geary fails to communicate meaningfully with the enigma race, but the aliens are unable to defeat the First Fleet in battle. The enigma race continues to prevent humanity from learning anything about them, going as far to blur out portions of their planets so ship sensors cannot view them. An asteroid is discovered in one alien system containing imprisoned humans inside. After managing to trick the aliens into their true intentions, the fleet manages to rescue the trapped humans before alien warships crash into the asteroid. Geary continues to explore the enigma race territory until the fleet jumps into another system and discovers a giant space station orbitting near the jump point. The stations fires hundreds giant missiles which are at first mistaken to be ships. After destroying all of the missiles the fleet discovers other such stations located at the jump points in the system, along with smaller, but still massive, warships orbiting the star. Rione concludes that the First Fleet has just discovered a second alien race.