Matt Newton grumbled as he strapped on his safety harness. “I’ve yet to have a flight that didn’t have some kind of problem.” With each pitch of the Mirhala, his stomach lurched until he worried that the small amount of food he’d managed to choke down for lunch was going to come right back up. “It’s just an asteroid field,” Betinsa Nungio replied, not sparing him a glance over her shoulder as she piloted her ship through the barrage of enormous rocks that seemed intent upon pounding the ship to smithereens. Her ponytail of thick, ebony curls bobbed with each sway of the ship. “Did you get the prisoner buckled in?” “Yeah. He’s strapped in good and tight.” With a look to the rear of the spacecraft, Matt checked again on the terrorist he, his Earth Bureau of Investigation partner Betinsa, and Ambassador Drake Keller were escorting back to the Rhotan System. While he would have preferred to put the guy on trial back on Earth, the recent and still-fragile treaty between Earth’s United Continents and the new Fraiqua government required any full-blooded Fraiquan to be handed over to their home planet for judgment.
