Star Ship

A Terran expedition stranded on the primitive world of Khazak has spent fifty years surviving, adapting, and slowly building a fragile place in a hostile culture. Now Dougald Anson returns to Krakenau in a storm and finds the city blacked out, terrified, and already falling to a coup led by the exiled Volakech. In the rain-slick streets, Anson is ambushed by royal guardsmen, rescued by the Khazaki Janazik, and pulled into a hidden refuge where the truth comes crashing down: his father and brother are dead, his sister Ellen is missing, and the rebels have seized the rocket boat that could reach the orbiting Star Ship. As loyalties fracture and old alliances turn treacherous, Anson learns that Masefield Carson has joined the uprising and may now be running the new regime. With Ellen's astrogation skills the key to the ship, the struggle becomes personal as well as political. Facing grief, betrayal, and impossible odds, Anson and Janazik lead a desperate nighttime assault through Krakenau's streets and into brutal close combat, fighting to stop Volakech before the fate of the human settlers—and Khazak itself—is decided. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.