Doohan, James & Stirling, S.M. The independent command.

(The Flight Engineer, Vol. 3). Baen. 408p. c2000. 0-671-31851-9. $7.99. JSA 

The human race is in dire peril, harried by renegade humans called Mollies who are intent on crippling Earth's colonization of other worlds. Their strategy is to deny access to a natural source of antihydrogen, a necessary fuel source for Earth's ships. To accomplish this, the suicidally murderous Mollies have teamed up with an extremely alien race of huge space-faring spiders, the Fibians. The combination of the Mollies' fanaticism and the Fibians' sophisticated technology is succeeding and a wise old admiral turns to a plucky unorthodox captain, Peter Raeder. Although a crusty general predicts failure for this young pup, circumstances are critical enough to grant Raeder and his intrepid crew carte blanche on weapons, technicians, and a ship, the Invincible. The desperate plan calls for a secret reconnaissance mission to capture a Fibian ship and crew to acquire much-needed information for retaliation. Raeder picks up his favorite lieutenant commander/sweetheart, Sarah James, his stalwart crew, and a talented linguist who also happens to be massively arachnophobic. They slip and skirt their way into enemy territory-right into a trap as extensive as the cottony webs the Fibians spin. In outrunning the ever-increasing amount of pursuers, the crew attempts a theoretically "possible" escape through one of the jump points and an accident delivers to them the potential savior of humanity-and it's not the least bit human!

Splashed throughout with humor and quick action, this is fun SF. However, I felt it misleading to have "Scotty" worked into the cover art, visually implying that it is a Star Trek book when it's a completely independent universe. Liz LaValley, Mattapoisett, MA