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Lost Starship #2

The Lost Command

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One hundred and fifty years ago, Earth colonists hoping to found a utopia emigrated deep into the Beyond. Now, the New Men are invading, a race of humans stronger, faster and smarter than the old.

Star Watch sends Admiral Fletcher to stop them. His command barely escapes annihilation by heading into the dreaded void. His battered ships are quickly running out of food, fuel and missiles, and they don’t dare go back again to face the New Men.

Star Watch frantically searches for a way to rescue the vessels. An ancient alien starship is parked in the Solar System, with an irritable AI refusing to cooperate. The vessel has powerful weapons—if anyone could figure out how to make them work after ten thousand years.

Star Watch summons Captain Maddox, the only person to have successfully worked with the ancient computer. The captain must convince his old acquaintance the AI—who has become smarter and even more belligerent than before—to help him rescue Fletcher. But what does the ten-thousand-year-old AI have to gain by helping Star Watch’s cockiest Intelligence officer? The answer just might help solve the threat of the New Men.

THE LOST COMMAND is the second book in the LOST STARSHIP SERIES.

448 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 20, 2015

1188 people are currently reading
506 people want to read

About the author

Vaughn Heppner

147 books569 followers
You can visit Vaughn at www.vaughnheppner.com

I was born in Canada and remember as a small boy crawling in my snow-fort. I closed my eyes, and when I tried to open them, they were frozen shut. I didn't panic, but wiped away the ice crystals, unglued my eyes and kept on building my tunnel. Those were great days! I moved to Central California before seventh grade and couldn't believe I lived in a land where oranges grew on trees and you could pick grapes from the vine.

I used to wonder what I wanted to do with my life, what kind of work specifically. I was miserable not knowing and bordering on desperate. Then one day a friend gave me his typewriter. I began working on a novel. A different person told me it was much easier on a computer, so I bought one and began getting up at 4:30 A.M. each morning before work, writing for three hours. My eyes were unglued once again as the pang of misery left my gut. I knew exactly what I wanted to do: write. So now that's what I do, I write, and write, and write, and I love it.

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5 stars
2,127 (40%)
4 stars
2,056 (39%)
3 stars
856 (16%)
2 stars
124 (2%)
1 star
37 (<1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 196 reviews
Profile Image for Jack.
332 reviews2 followers
April 3, 2015
The Lost Command, the second in The Lost Starship series, is written heads and shoulders above the first book. And still, at the end of this one as with the first one, I want more.

It's hard to talk about the book without spoilers. Suffice to say the New Men become more than just a presence on the screen. That first meeting, I felt energy emanating forcefully from the screen. And we learn more of the New Men's plan for humanity. They may be new men, but it's an old plan. That's spoiler enough.

I thoroughly enjoyed this. All the main characters grow in the book. I felt fully involved in all the scenes, and in several cases, I'm glad I wasn't there. I can imagine this book translated to the big screen quite easily. While Battlestar Galactica (the reboot) wasn't a movie, this book has that same feel and scope.

I recommend this highly.
Profile Image for Phil.
2,417 reviews237 followers
February 2, 2020
The second installment of the Lost Starship series picks up a few months after the first one. The Fifth fleet, humanity's last attack force, is decimated and heading toward disaster; only the mavericks on the Alien destroyer can save the day! If you like 'golden age' scifi, this might be for you. If you have modern sensibilities regarding gender, be warned; Heppner fails the Bechdel test in a big way. This is the sort of rah rah scifi that graced mags in the 30s and 40s, and for what it is, it is fun. 2.5 stars.
Profile Image for Mike Nemeth.
672 reviews13 followers
March 28, 2015
On his second novel of the Lost Starship series, author Vaughn Heppner brings back the conflicted Captain Maddox and his eclectic crew who despite their faults make saving the universe their obsession. "The Lost Command" appears more character driven than many of Heppner's books. His star is the muy macho half superman (or new man), but Maddox suspects his origins may make him even more of an outcast amongst his fellow humans. Maddox suspects he's half new man. And that's not such a great thing since these smarter, better, faster new men want to exterminate most of the human race like a shipful of Daleks. He and his crew face incredible difficulties. The most intense appears to be winning over the ancient ship they recovered in the first book. This alien vessel is the only hope of Star Watch, the military organization tasked with protecting human populated worlds. But the ship is run by an artificial intelligence who believes he's been tricked and wants nothing more than killing Maddox. But the captain is extremely good at trickery, so he does it again. Meanwhile, Heppner expands on the other characters, including the ship's AI. It's a bit of a departure for the author. But it works, and he's made a clearly engaging new series with a bunch of possible directions and backstories.
Profile Image for Tony Hisgett.
2,996 reviews36 followers
May 13, 2019
I didn’t particularly like the first book in this series, but I thought I would give it another chance before giving up.
The story starts with the ‘Human’ fleet in chaos debating whether they should attack the “New Man’ fleet or not. It appears they have learnt nothing.
The book carries on from the last one with a series of disasters and I just could face another four hundred pages.
7 reviews
January 29, 2015
good read

Enjoy this author, this one was not a let down at all, the beginning was a little confusing but it all came nicely together.
7 reviews
August 13, 2018
Excellent book.

Book 2 of a very interesting series. Plot has unexpected twists making the book hard to put down. Looking forward to Book 3.
Profile Image for Remy G.
699 reviews4 followers
December 19, 2018
The second installment of author Vaughn Heppner’s Lost Starship series opens with a memorandum indicating that Captain Maddox returned from the Beyond with an alien starship (the Victory) and that the New Men attacked the Commonwealth, the events believed related. The first four main chapters occur near Caria 323 in the “C” Quadrant, likely of the Milky Way Galaxy, with an attack by the New Men being imminent, although many in the Commonwealth believe they have “victory disease,” blinded by their accomplishments. The enigmatic Oran Rva leads the New Men, claiming to be the conqueror of the Commonwealth, with the galactic organization talking of using the Victory against them.

The chapter numbering restarts at one when the events shift back to Earth, where its inhabitants are ignorant and apathetic about the New Men, Captain Maddox, one of the primary protagonists, told to commence Operation Odysseus. Meanwhile, his love interest Meta finds herself attacked and kidnapped by strangers, with Maddox ultimately coming by her apartment complex and finding that the security footage showing her capture had been subject to tampering. Believing Meta to still be on Earth, Maddox heads to Monte Carlo to visit Octavian Nerva, who denies having a role in kidnapping her. Maddox quickly finds himself in a hostage situation, although he ultimately connects with Brigadier O’Hara, nicknamed the Iron Lady.

Maddox’ superiors believe like he does that the Victory is the key to triumph over the New Men, and the Captain is tasked to find Professor Ludendorff to exploit the alien starship, whose traps have claimed the lives of researchers. An initial antagonist other than the New Men is the alien vessel’s artificial intelligence that identifies itself as Driving Force Galyan, which indicates the ship to be the remnant of the extinct alien civilization the Adoks, who were a peaceful race, and promises eventual conveyance to the homeworld of the Swarm. A series of battles between the New Men and the Commonwealth round out the novel, with Maddox also learning about his lineage.

Overall, the first Lost Starship sequel effectively and satisfactorily continues its predecessor’s plotline, with the characters definitely being believable and the story itself full of good science-fiction action and occasional twists. Granted, the author could have come up with a better-sounding name for the antagonists other than “the New Men,” with the writer likely a fan of the various Star Trek television series and movies in the creation of the aforementioned narrative foes. The story also touches briefly upon the eugenics pseudoscience, with this reviewer somewhat relating to the themes of genetic superiority and inferiority, and would recommend the book to fans of the sci-fi genre.
Profile Image for Alex Shrugged.
2,744 reviews30 followers
January 8, 2019
I read this book almost exactly a year ago. I remembered most of it, but since I am trying to read the latest books in the series, I thought I would go back and review some of the earlier books.

The Story: Now that the alien super ship has been recovered, the government has been trying to duplicate the alien technology in order to use these new weapons to defeat the New Men, a race of augmented super beings with a well defined sense of self. But with the recent near defeat of Star Watch forces, Captain Maddock is brought in to find a missing super scientist to activate the alien weapons and save us all.

Any problems with the story? With background from Book 1 it is easier (although not easy) to figure out what is going on. The general feud between Maddock and one of the wealthiest men in the world is ongoing. It still makes very little sense to me. The whole business seems too cute by half.

The chances for a successful search for the super scientist is virtually zero, but oh look! There he is!

Any modesty issues? Well... sex is implied, but weakly such as "he urged her along to his cabin" or words to that effect. The word "d-mn" is used quite a bit, but nothing worse than that.

The next book in the series is The Lost Destroyer. As I recall, that will introduce a larger conspiracy that will continue throughout the series.
185 reviews1 follower
August 8, 2021
The Lost Command. Book II Of The Lost Starship series.

The hard science subjects here are:

Genetic Engineering.
Long and short-term interstellar travel.
Imprinted engrams AI.
Ancient alien artifacts.

Same topics as book one. One thing I did observe. The expansion of the human race. This has also been the topic of many science fiction stories. Once there was a way to achieve FTL colonization of exoplanets that are Earth-like the human race will unite to get to space then go on their separate ways. In this book, you can see this covered. So far I have noticed socio-political systems. You have the "commonwealth", "Wahabi Caliphate", "Brahma" and others.

These systems make a grandiose effort to keep their culture religion and belief systems. We run into the Axiom: " the more things change the more thing stays the same"

Of course, you have a genetically engineered new species of human called the Newmen they have created a culture and anti-religion of their own. Where did they come from? what is their purpose? I am reading book 3 to find out.
Profile Image for Tom.
218 reviews3 followers
July 12, 2017
This is the 2nd book in the series. I do like the book and the adventure is exciting. Sometimes the lead character is a little too much (over acted). Yet, the idea of a lost ship thousands of years old that was found and is able to aid earth and the commonwealth against a seemingly impossible enemy is great. Every now and then there are places where the dialog seems to jump like a paragraph was edited out. Usually, I just skip over it but it is still annoying.

The other characters in this book seem to carry less weight than in the first book. I would like to see the "professor" find solutions to some of the major problems with the ship. To me the author seems to be putting it off so the 'drama' is intensified. I guess I like resolutions instead of a continual set of complications.

I am looking forward to reading the third book in the series. My hope is that the old ship's technology can be duplicated and aid the remaining ships in the fleet.
171 reviews2 followers
February 22, 2022
Another good story as the second book in this series. Action, plot twists and constant struggles as the main characters battle an enemy that tends to out-think the human race at almost every turn. Like many of the sci-fi "series" to there the author keeps you on edge, rewards you a little and then leaves you hanging for the next book. The trick will be to provide us with something other than constant battles as I need some extra mystery :-) There are a couple of clues in this book that I think will lead to some of that extra mystery as there is ancient alien technology within the story that leaves the reader wondering what's next.
Profile Image for Jason Hughes.
6 reviews1 follower
November 3, 2022
Pretty good for a Kindle Unlimited series

Have you read one of those Kindle Series where the second book is so like the first, you quickly lose interest? We’ll, this isn’t one of those series (so far). Are some of the same plot devices present that were in the first book? Sure. But, there are new ones too. The book begins with a mystery, that seems pretty cut-and-dried, but ends up being less trope-y than it first seems.

The characters are still a bit undeveloped, and a mite too likeable for my tastes, but there’s a lot of books ahead, so we’ll see what happens.
Profile Image for Mhinternational88.
5 reviews2 followers
June 6, 2017
A step up from the fist book, and a great building block for the rest of the story.

The individual characters from book one all get more depth. Rather than the reader only really knowing the motives of the main character we get to know more of the driving force of his team.

Personally i think the most interesting aspect of the book are the ancient aliens and the AI and the teases of them will be driving me to finish the series and possibly rage if I learn nothing.
67 reviews2 followers
April 7, 2021
I found a new best Author

Another block buster. I read Hundreds of books a year on Kindle mostly 98% scify/fantasy/space. I was starting to despair ,Quality authors that could hold my interest in their current series and then the rest in their holdings with their rush to write and publishes was becoming a serious challenge. Then I found this author. These first two books are quality material.
96 reviews1 follower
Read
July 7, 2022
Well fabricated tale

Competently written and well structured. Never really lapsed in boring. But for some reason I cannot name it was not really that exciting or inspirational either. Maybe it was due to very commonness of the alienated Uber hero and broken super ship and endless luck in battle
. Still I would give it 3.5 stars if the system allowed because it was a cut above mediocre. Just not enough above average to give it a strong recommendation.
Profile Image for Christoffer.
132 reviews5 followers
September 1, 2022
Much better than the first one of the series. Still not sure how worthwhile the remaining books will turn out, but I'll at least read "The Lost Destroyer" until I give up on it.

While I do enjoy the "Humanity, fuck yeah!" feeling I get from some of the chapters in the books, it lacks that element of hard science I enjoy when it comes to sci-fi.
Maybe the Expanse ruined me when it comes to the "lazier" world-building of certain sci-fi books.
Profile Image for Emz.
643 reviews
Read
January 26, 2025
No stars, nul points. This book was an absolute train wreck. Every page was a cringe-fest, and finishing it felt like a Herculean task. The repetitive drivel about the New Men's speed was unbearable – I got it the first hundred times! My eyes rolled so far back, I could see my brain cells dying. I couldn't delete this series from my Calibre library fast enough. As they say in Dragons' Den or Shark Tank, 'I'm out.'"


1,003 reviews4 followers
September 25, 2018
A good sequel

This book established a few bits of new information, but more importantly it further fleshed out existing story lines and characters. It didn't suddenly charge off in random directions as some sequels do in hopes of being a "stand-alone" story in case the reader didn't bother to read the first book.
No earth shattering surprises, but decent story telling.
1 review
July 28, 2020
This time m e I. had a hard time putting it down

The story covered f war with them and it worked good part of the galaxy and made me need to know o w the next twist I have two favorite characters that proved so very fascinating I could feel the tug of war between them and it worked so well I was compelled to know the end game. Such a well played out story
16 reviews
January 24, 2021
This is a fun, so far, SciFi series. It has what one is looking for; strong captain, intelligent crew-members, a loyal crew, an AI, lots of unknown stuff, and some love interest. The story is wide-reaching but each book is about a single task they need to solve.

The interactions with the "New Men" and the use of an alien ship to help win a battle keep my interest. Hope others enjoy too.
Profile Image for Kevin Huff.
392 reviews3 followers
March 1, 2021
Things be heating up, with Starship Victory a somewhat wonky AI, and a fleet admiral we hurt the New Men for the first time. Some new mysteries are revealed and a little more about the history of our local galaxy is discovered (or is it?). Dr whats-his-face is acting shady but pulls off a big win getting some of the big weapons up and going on Victory as well as re-balancing the AI.
Profile Image for Gordon Watts.
54 reviews1 follower
March 25, 2021
Argh. I gave it two books. The writing isn't getting better. The basic framework is great - good story - does pretty good thinking through character motivations - but... the telling of the story, especially anything inter-personal, does not work at all for me. I'm giving up on the series (which is hard for me to do, btw!).
208 reviews
June 5, 2021
Exciting

Exciting. Our heroes Maddox ,Valerie, Meta and the rest strives to complete their mission while he struggles with their inner demons. I like the way the New Men are written, tough, smart, fast and so full of themselves, really they look like space N#$%, can we even say the word? But you'll get the reference when you read the book.
12 reviews1 follower
March 1, 2023
excellent story

Part 2 of the series does not disappoint, with the same group of characters facing the implacable enemy. Well written and edited, hardly any vulgarity, and what there is, is mild and not gratuitous. I highly recommend it and am looking forward to the third book in the series.
Profile Image for George Sterling.
203 reviews
January 20, 2025
Lost Command

I just finished reading this series and loved every minute of it.Right from the start of the first book to the last of the second it keeps you engrossed with plenty of action.If you like fast paced action and plenty of science fiction then you have to read this series.
320 reviews
May 21, 2017
Slow starting and a lot of revisiting the previous book to remind you what happened so took a lot of will to keep going but the second half of the book got things moving again. Left it good for the next book.
1,420 reviews1 follower
December 25, 2017
Nicely done

The continuing adventures of Captain Maddox are just as tense as the first book. The plot was just as engaging as I'd hoped. A little more diversity in the cast would make this the perfect sequel but that being said, I really liked this book.
Profile Image for Jeffrey Hart.
393 reviews7 followers
November 21, 2017
Second in a series of space opera books, our hero is attempting to get back to the home planet after defeating the "new men" by recovering an ancient spaceship and winning the love of a very strong female. But the New Men are still on the lose and just as dangerous.
9 reviews
January 25, 2018
Lost Command

This book in the series is an excellent follow-up to the initial book in the Lost Starship series. There are numerous twists and character streams that arise and have added new dimension to the storyline. I am starting book 3 as soon as I complete this review.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 196 reviews

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