The Wreck of the Untranslatable

The First Tale of the Scape Grace

Captain Evgeny Lerner was already struggling to maintain his mastery of the pirate starship Scape Grace and her crew of pan-galactic rogues.  He just wanted to guide her toward profit and away from disaster, by navigating the shrinking shadows of an expanding galactic Collective.  Stuck with a giant, violent, authoritarian first mate; a half-computer communications officer; a xenophobic ship's doctor; a psychotic, saurian weapons officer; a genetically engineered engineer torn from his collectivist species; and a combat crew culled from the worst refuse of two systems, Captain Lerner faced plenty of challenges.  But when a raid went wrong and Scape Grace was caught defenseless, they found themselves pressed into service escorting a lost ship from an unknown alien race.  The unique ship with an untranslatable name proved that even in an increasingly civilized galaxy, surrounded by some of its oddest renegades, a weary ship's captain could still be surprised by something new.