This is the second in the “Solar Queen” series featuring all my favorites. Fleshing out their character, crewmembers in this novel take on more depth. The crew of the Solar Queen has been searching for a way to connect with the natives of a very primitive planet inhabited by various tribes existing in a kind of pecking order determined by hand to hand combat among their chiefs. While Captain Jellico champions his cause in physical combat to win trading rights, the conflict only begins there. Once in space it appears that the Queen has taken more than just cargo in her holes. One by one every member of the crew, except for those given a strange concoction which nearly killed them while planet bound lapse into a deep coma. From this point on it falls on those remaining crewmembers to not only race the clock to honor their hard won planetary contract while constantly avoiding destruction at the hands of “Patrol”. Will they find a cure for the mysterious “plague” before the clock runs out for all of them?