Robert Frezza

Ken MacKay's career in space was going nowhere. The decrepit trading ship he served on was also going nowhere: the Rustam's Slipper was grounded on Schuyler's World, a backwater planet lacking even a good bar. For diversion, Schuyler's offered bad bars, cute yet conniving aliens called Rodents, and Catarina -- a mysterious, beautiful, unsettlingly smart woman. Catarina wanted a berth on the Slipper; the Slipper needed a crew member. She Was hired.

But Ken soon discovered that Catarina was more than a vamp with a razor-sharp wit. First was her case of McLendon's Syndrome, an obscure little contagious disease treatable only with chocolate-chip cookies. Then there were all the secrets she was hiding. So she wasn't the most trustworthy ally a guy could want as the Slipper hurried straight into murder, mayhem, intrigue, and an interspecies war -- but she was all Ken had. And unless she helped Ken whip the crew into shape and muster the misfits and malcontents of Schuyler's World, it would be the shortest war on record...

Del Rey Discovery