Nice little story about a very powerful starship with a questionable Captain! And no, the starship in the title is completely misleading. In fact, the book cover looks very similar to some Lego™️ that I’ve seen! No this story begins after the Arodoni starship *Renegade* has fought a major battle against the Ashi Imperium and a huge space station that was used specifically for slave trading.
The crew had found humans living at the lowest levels of the space station. These were the lowest of the low, barely living on trash and refuse sent down by the others in higher levels of the space station. They were living mostly in the dark and were used mostly to birth other humans to be turned into more slaves. Master Sergeant Remmy Steel and his Marines found these humans living in these conditions and swore he would do what it took to free these humans.
The starship *Renegade* wasn’t like any other starship Captain Zeke Darius had commanded. This obviously had a tremendous amount of technology that Earth hadn’t even thought of yet. But, he was afraid that if he took this ship straight back to Earth, the Ashi Imperium would follow him. Earth had no way to defend itself from the Empire. While this ship had technology far superior to Earth’s, so did the Ashi Imperium. Even a small fleet of Ashi ships arriving in the Solar System would mean that humans were soon to be slaves of the Empire. Captain Darius wasn’t going to let that happen even if he could never return home.
Meanwhile, the Ashi Empire was attempting to track down the *Renegade*. They believed the ship still have their Emperor Vang as prisoner although he had been wounded during a battle on the planet Casasil. Unknown to the Ashi was that their Emperor was dead! He had been killed by his former slave, Nurek, a Dudonus, against the wished of Captain Darius. Still, Captain Darius believed the Ashi fleets might be reluctant to fire upon his ship for a couple of reason. One, they wanted the ships technology and two, they would like to rescue their Emperor. Of those two reasons, Sheika Kahn, commander of the Ashi fleet and potentially the next Emperor, cared only about the second reason.
Sheika Kahn was also furious since they had arrived at the devastated space station after the *Renegade* had departed. He wanted his ship’s commanders to understand that they must follow the Arodoni ship and eventually capture it at all cost. This would certainly get him confirmed by the Council as the next Emperor! Yet, the Arodoni ship had been able to allude his fleets for quite some time. The *Renegade* was also providing much more powerful than his entire fleet. He had lost more ships in fighting this one ship in the past hundreds years and it had to stop.
Captain Darius now had a ship full of aliens, former slaves, that he needs to take somewhere. They have heard of a free worlds unknown to the Ashi Empire. This is where they must go but they cannot lead the Ashi fleet there also. So, they head out to a hidden warp gateway using knowledge gained from some of the former slaves.
This is where things start to fall apart. They do in fact lead the Imperium fleet to the free worlds, but in the meantime, Captain Darius has a plan to send some of his people back to Earth. Will this be a mistake? You’ll have to read the story to find out.
I would have thought this would be the end of the story, but know, I think the author has more in store for the *Renegade* and Captain Darius. Unfortunately, the next book isn’t identified on Amazon so we’ll just have to wait and see what comes out later.
==[Note: As of 12/03/2023, this will not be published on Amazon since I have been banned from posting reviews for some unknown reason. Once the ban is lifted, assuming it does get lifted, I’ll go back and post this to Amazon.]==