Eight Minutes Until the End of the World

On the Tridak ship, an alien utters the worst thing an alien can ever say: "Oops!" And on Earth in NASA's latest project, the Mercury Probe Orbiter, John Fanchett makes the fateful announcement: "Sir, we got a big problem. The sun is going nova."

The problem is, John only has eight minutes before the end of planet Earth, to solve the mystery of an alien language and his own survival.

Bonus short story: The Emergence

The Emergence has always loved her captain, and as aliens endanger her, she must take steps to avoid what could be a horrible blunder with alien intelligence. For the Emergence is one of the first artificially intelligent spaceships.