Needle

Officers Ryan Matson and Sandy Rie meet on the Alpha Queen 9, furthermost outpost of the Alliance fleet. Sandy Rie, an eager newbie gunner, nurtures a secondary agenda: historical research to verify her failed college Master's thesis that some of the first hundred colony ships sent out from Sol system 500 years previously, have indeed made planetfall. The Kritsch, a race of sentient insects ('bugs'), are inimical to all other sentient life. They are the bane of the Alliance's advance up the arm of the galaxy. Mattson flies the Needle, a fast recon ship, into uncharted regions of deep space. Sandy and Ryan establish a personal and professional relationship, which eventually develops into a first-class team flying updated Needle 2's. Each mission brings them closer to that last, fatal mistake that could be the end for them and would likely result in a pull-back of Alliance space exploration.