Escaping Utopia: Renegade Galaxy Series

By Steve Anderson

Escape is possible, survival is another story…

  The thrilling adventures of Captain Victoria LeGrande and her intrepid crew of the warship Artemis from, "Renegades of Orion" continues in, "Escaping Utopia".  The crippled ship and her remaining crew have made the long journey to the Utopia System, but they are still in great danger.  Utopia is a lawless place and the help the Captain seeks from an old friend may bring them into harm's way once again.

  Hands Hernandez, the engineer Captain LeGrande seeks out for help, may have a solution to their problems, but it may cause the tight-knit survivors to splinter once again.  In fact, Hands may need the crew's help as much as they need him.  He has mixed himself up with both the Mirror Family Crime Syndicate and the United Nations Space Exploration Agency who vie for control of the Utopia System.  Hands may need to escape just as much as the Artemis and her crew!

  Will they have time and the resources to repair their damaged ship?  Can they agree on a new course if they do?  They must avoid detection by their former comrades in the resistance, the eyes, and ears of the Mirror Family, and the operatives of the Earthling factions still searching for the stolen warship.  Any mistake they make will be deadly.

  Escaping Utopia may be the only way any of them can survive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Anderson
• Release date: Jun 29, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386677291

Steve Anderson

  Steve Anderson has been telling stories of one kind or another as long as he could string together coherent thoughts.  He was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, he has traveled around the world, and has lived all over the United States, from Virginia to Wisconsin.  He now calls the small town of Ottumwa, Iowa home.  Steve has had a variety of jobs, from his enlistment in the U.S. Navy after high school, to managing a bar in his adopted hometown.  You can often find him telling stories about his travels, embarrassing situations and other tall tales where ever he may be.  Steve’s hobbies include world history, gaming, watching movies, listening to music, reading, and writing (especially science fiction and fantasy).  His favorite authors include Robert A. Heinlein, Piers Anthony, Frank Herbert, Leo Frankowski, L.E. Modesitt Jr. and J.R.R. Tolkien.

Book preview

For Steven – You are my Sunshine

The Captain said, Morning Doc.  I have the bridge watch.  You can finally get some sleep; dinner was great last night by the way.

Dr. Ezra simply nodded, the tired look in his eyes said more than words ever could.  Just the same he said, You’re welcome, Captain.  We still have plenty of food, despite the long journey.  I’ll leave the ship in your capable hands.  Good night.

He was through the security door and down the ladder faster than she would have expected for a man his age.  That is, she would have been surprised if they hadn’t spent so much time training together before stealing the Artemis.  She looked over the displays on the bridge stations, but nothing had changed since they reached their destination.  Their ordeal was far from over, but they had spent the last two months adjusting to the idea that things would never be the way they were before the ambush.

They went from militant revolutionaries to wounded renegades by surviving the surprise attack in a remote part of the Orion system that took only a few seconds from start to finish.  She and the three of her crew who survived those few devastating seconds were still on the run now.  While they might never know who betrayed them in the Free Orion resistance movement, one thing became clear on their long jump here, there was no going back.  What happened to them next weighed heavily on the Captain’s mind every time she thought about what led them to this moment.

The Artemis still sat in the empty space some smugglers had carved out of the asteroid belt years ago, one of hundreds of such hidey-holes she knew dotted the outer belt.  Captain LeGrande looked over the damage control display on the internal indicators one more time.  The digital representation of the delta-shaped warship was still a mix of red, yellow and green symbols she had memorized over the past two months, but at least there was no new damage.

Although there were more green-lit indicators than there had been while they were underway, the ship was still in no condition to fight.  The surprise attack that had crippled the stolen ship was meant to disable her, not destroy her.  The unknown attackers had nearly succeeded too.  All that kept the Artemis intact was the Captain’s quick reflexes, and the ship’s one working combat system.  That was just enough to keep half of her skeleton crew alive.

The next step on their path was for the Captain to send a message to her one-time friend, Hands Hernandez.  She hadn’t seen him in years, but he had saved her life then.  He was part of a smuggler’s crew when she met him, and with her help had taken control of a tiny station here in the outer belt, the last she knew.

He had no love of the resistance back in Orion or the Mirror Family, who ran most of the illicit activity here in the Utopia system.  She still felt an obligation to him for the bullet he had taken for her from the Family.  If there was anyone who could help them and keep those two groups from finding out about it, Hands was her best chance.

That was, assuming he was alive, still in control of that station and willing to help her in the first place.  There was only one way to find out.  The Captain dialed in the carrier frequency Hands used, typed out, Scarecrow at pothole.  Hands had a weird sense of humor about the codes for his contact messages.  She encrypted it against anyone who might be listening just the same and sent the message out.  All she could do now was wait.

The Captain and the Artemis were as prepared as they could be, for the moment, but both she and her ship had seen better days.  Daiyu, the lone survivor of her engineering team had sealed the aft hull breach that killed everyone around her.  The Artemis still had a major breach in her forward port side, and the Captain still sported freshly healed burns to the left side of her face and neck.  Dr. Ezra had done the best he could with cryogel and patience to help the Captain recover from her wounds.  At least she could see out of both eyes again.

Hours after the Captain sent the message, Rita came to the bridge to relieve her and assume the watch.  Despite Rita’s reluctance to make the trip to Utopia, and the loss of her lover, Enrique in the ambush, she had done an impressive job keeping them all together once the Captain made the decision.  She had thrown herself into repairing the failed repulsion field emitter, organized the disguise work on their shuttle, and remained prompt for her six-hour watch on the bridge.

Rita said, You look more worn out than usual.  Any changes I need to know about?

The Captain said, Nothing on board has changed.  I sent a message to my contact here at the beginning of my watch.  No response in almost six hours has me a bit worried.  If something on the carrier frequency I have called up comes in, wake me right away.  No matter how worn out I may be.

Rita nodded and was about to say something else when the comm chime sounded.  Both women looked from each other the console the Captain had been waiting on for hours.  The received message