The Privateer (The Flight Engineer, Book 2) - Pasta blanda

THESE SPACE PIRATES ARE THE GOOD GUYS!<P>Peter Raeder was an ace pilot until a battle cost him his hand -- and his right to fly the fighter ships he loved. So he became Flight Engineer on the fast carrier Invincible, a crack new ship with a picked crew, ready to fight the fanatical Mollies and their spiderlike alien allies. On his first mission, he faced pirate raiders, attacks by Mollies and a hidden saboteur on board who came close to destroying the Invincible before Raeder unmasked him.<P>Unfortunately for Raeder, his heroism didn't follow the rulebook, and his reward for saving the ship was a reprimand and a deskbound assignment -- a fate worse than death for a born spacehound like Raeder. Then a less rulebound General offers Raeder an escape: command of a hidden base deep in Mollie-controlled space from which ships, posing as space pirates, will harry Mollie shipping, like the seagoing privateers of Earth's past. And Raeder finds a dangerous mission preferable to exile to an office cubicle ... even if his chances of surviving are very nearly zero.