Ten optimistic and forward-looking space stories that show how we journey to the stars!This is the third volume of the collected short stories of Joe Vasicek. It includes:The Scales of the Space WhaleThe most dangerous creatures in the universe will kill you before they know you exist!In the BeginningParadise is not what—or where—it seems.(After Dinner Conversation, August 2020)From the Ice IncarnateThey say that going into cryo is the closest thing to death short of actually dying. I believe it.(1st place, 2009 Vera Hinckley Mayhew Contest BYU)When She AwakesTo pay her father's debt, she must offer herself as coin.The InfiltratorThe aliens are already among us, in a form we refuse to see.(Not Far From Roswell, December 2019)AbductorsAlways check your backblast before launching your UFO.(Never before published!)StarchildThe revolutions passed, and the stars spun silently underfoot.(Bards and Sages Quarterly, October 2019)L'enfer, c'est la SolitudeWar is not the only hell in the cold, empty void of space.(Perihelion, March 2016; The New Accelerator, August 2018)The Janus AnomalyWhat do you do when you're the only sane one and everyone else is crazy?(Kasma Magazine, May 2019; Twilight Tales, February 2021)Lizzie-99XTTo save humanity, she must become the machine.(Serial Magazine, August 2019)