The Cosmic Derelict

Captain Christopher Douglas has just been given his first command, and he's already about to lose it. A stowaway cost his ship Lucifer a day of inspections at the spaceport, and now Douglas faces an impossible deadline. Deliver the platinum cargo late, and the Navy takes back his ship. But there's one option: the Pass of the Twin Witches, a route so dangerous and so shunned that no captain has dared it in decades. Ships that take it don't come back. Or if they do, their crews are never quite the same. What follows is a masterclass in retro science fiction tension. Broome builds dread with the slow certainty of a horror story, layering rational fear against something darker: the superstitions of spacemen who've seen too much in the void. Is the Pass truly cursed, or are the real monsters the ones who refuse to face their own doubts? The answer is as satisfying as it is unsettling. This is pure 1940s pulp adventure, but it punches well above its weight class. The psychological stakes are as real as any alien threat, and Douglas's struggle to prove himself makes every cautious crewmember feel like a potential mutineer. Classic sci-fi fans will recognize the bones of countless stories that followed, but this is where they learned to build dread.