After The Silence by David Loschke—a first contact story in the “hard science” stream of science fiction―Our Milky Way Galaxy is more than 13,000 million years old. Science suggests that life, including intelligent life, could have appeared in many places in the galaxy. The mystery of why no sign of life beyond Earth has ever been detected has been called “the Great Silence”. After The Silence is an account of the surprises and challenges facing Earth when contact with an alien civilization of staggering advancement and age finally takes place on New Year’s Day, 2052. When the aliens announce their presence from a point on the far fringe of the solar system, they say they want to be friends with Earth’s people. But no one can know whether their assurance is true or whether it is a ruse. The once confident masters of the small blue planet can only huddle near the campfire of their star—waiting … waiting for a future more mysterious and more uncertain than any they had ever imagined.