Book excerpt: I hadn't really enjoyed my life on Earth. I lost my parents to a drunk driver, had distant family who didn't offer much, and I was stuck in a job that I couldn't stand. So when the opportunity came up to be flung out into space, to start over on a new world, I grabbed it with both hands. Going into cryo-freeze with a thousand others I expected to wake up early to prepare the ship for arrival. Instead I woke up next to an alien on a world I'd never heard of. Between a foul mouthed roommate with a mysterious past, alien gangs wanting to make an example of me, and a local crime lord wanting to conscript us... this really wasn't the fresh start I'd hoped for. But it was what I had, and come hell or high water I was going to make the most of it.