Atlas' Last Stand — J. Channing

It was just another routine day for the crew of the Ichikari, an illegal mining ship traveling just beyond human occupied space, and just out of reach of the law. For those who venture out beyond the safety of Sol Space Command, profit is all that matters, and risks are incidental. Within hours, the ship is attacked by a telepathic alien species, and the crew of the mining vessel destroy each other in the madness that results. Only one brave girl escapes to tell their story.

Back on Earth, Captain Atlas Carter is torn between his loyalty to the mentor he has known since his childhood, and the brotherhood of his fellow officers in the Earth's SSC Navy. Betrayed by those he trusted with his life, he can only watch helplessly as everyone and everything dear to him is obliterated.

With his home in ashes, his wife murdered, and both his life and his career in jeopardy, Carter welcomes reassignment to a remote system that contains both a colonized planet, and a penal planet. The job itself seems simple enough. He's to take command of a ship and provide security for the humans on both planets, defending them from pirates and smugglers. When he arrives in the Sword Belt of the Orion Nebula, he soon discovers his job will not be so simple after all.

Barely on board his new ship, the Fate's Winds and her crew face a pirate captain and her crew who've been raiding both planets on a regular basis, a corrupt administrator with plans of his own to get back to Earth so he can exact revenge upon those who condemned him to life on a backwater world, and an alien force that's far more numerous and deadly than anyone had ever imagined, hell bent on finding a new home for their people. It'll take Captain Carter, and the pirate captain Mephista working together to stop both the corrupt administrator, and the alien threat. The question is, can they find it in themselves to trust one another, before it's too late?