Farwest (Book 1 of the Astralmap Chronicles)

The Farwest mining outpost was not a place to seek fortune, or refuge, but it was a good place to go to die. That was the sole reason Derek Miller chose the site, after losing his wife and child in a violent attack by hoodlums on Mars. Little did he know that traveling to the farthest point in the mapped universe was exactly what he needed to find a reason to live again. As foreman of the site, Derek is tasked with overseeing a motley skeleton crew of roughnecks and desperates, as they bore into the planetoid's surface, in search of the newly discovered mineral, xenoradium. Complicating matters even further, Derek is forced deal with a growing tension between the miners and the United Council Guard, the onsite military presence, and their commanding officer, Lieutenant Wahl Jenkins; a drugged-addicted paranoiac who has been sent to the Farwest site against his will. Constantly challenged to put the needs of a greedy Corprigovernment, hundreds of thousands of light years away, above his own crew, as well as deal with the impending threat of collision with an unknown object coming from deep space, Derek must find a way to keep his people safe and alive, all the while, just trying to maintain a sliver of his own sanity. This is Farwest... Welcome to the edge...