"What are you doing here?" asked Mitzner, when McAfree arrived at the shuttlebay. She was carrying two heavy looking bags full of equipment, and struggling with them.

"Nice to see you too, Mitzner," she replied "And here's me thinking we had a budding friendship."

"You know what I mean," said Mitzner "Where's Dr. Kang?"

"Doc says that you'd kill him if you were left alone with him, so coming along would be tantamount to a crime against humanity," replied McAfree "That's how he always characterizes his own murder."

"Is that so?" said Mitzner.

"I don't blame you," McAfree continued "Objectively speaking he deserves to die. The Foundation needs him, though. He's our monster."

"I'm not going to kill Dr. Kang," said Mitzner "Why does everyone think that?"

"Never say never," said McAfree "Just not now."

"Tell Kang that he won't be alone with Mitzner," said Commander Gibson "I'll be there too."

"He thinks you're both in cahoots," said McAfree, with a shrug.

"I've come to the point where I no longer care what he thinks," said Gibson "The Captain ordered him to go down with us and that's exactly what's going to happen if we have to drag him there."

"Whatever you two do next, can I please watch?" asked McAfree.

* * *

Dr. Kang was, eventually, induced to accompany the landing party without the use of violence. McAfree was disappointed.

"You're quite certain you can get us through that layer of debris intact?" Dr. Kang asked, as he double checked all the lander's emergency systems.

"Of course I'm certain," replied Mitzner "I have faith in myself, which means there's no limit to what I can accomplish!"

Dr. Kang's widening eyes and dilated pupils told Mitzner her comment had had the intended effect.

"Here goes nothing," said Mitzner, taking hold of the controls in front of her "Believe to achieve!"

Mitzner was more than capable of piloting through the debris field. She had been through way worse situations. For starters the debris wasn't shooting at her. Mitzner could have made the landing look easy. She chose not to.

With a controlled recklessness that surprised even herself, Mitzner served back and forth between life-threatening shards of rapidly moving metal, bouncing between them and creating as many near misses as she was capable of.

The tiny landing craft dove and whirled through the space junk. It might have been elegant if Mitzner had not taken great pains to make sure it was not so. There was a showmanship to what she was up to; she was playing the part of the haphazard pilot.

Eventually Kang caught on.

"Even you couldn't be so poor a pilot," he said "You've made your point."

That took all the fun out of it, but Mitzner made a few more near misses all the same. She couldn't very well give in on his say-so. Finally, she brought the ship down into the upper atmosphere of Sagan Major.

That was the moment when the surface-to-air genius missiles launched.