Publisher's Synopsis
Peter Raeder, ace pilot, lost a hand in the war against the Mollies - and, with it, his right to fly the fighter ships that had been his first love. He became Flight Engineer on the fast carrier Invincible, a crack new ship with a hand-picked crew, ready to fight both the Mollies who control the universe's richest anti-hydrogen mines, and the loathsome spider-like aliens who are their allies. On his very first mission he faced pirate raiders, attacks by Mollies and a hidden saboteur who came close to destroying the Invincible before Raeder unmasked him.
Unfortunately for Raeder, his heroism didn't follow the rulebook, and his reward for saving the ship was a dressing-down from a martinet admiral and a deskbound assignment - a fate worse than death for a born spacehound like Raeder. But then a less rule-bound officer offers him an escape: to command a hidden base deep in Mollie-controlled space from which he will harry Mollie shipping, like the seagoing privateer's of Earth's historic past. And Raeder finds a dangerous mission preferable to exile to an office cubicle - even if his chances of surviving this assignment are little better than zero.
