Pitch:

Environmental litigator Ev Kovach has made a killing defending Big Industry against the “little guy.” But when she’s zapped from Earth and appointed to defend Homo sapiens in the Intergalactic Court of Justice, she’ll not only discover if she has what it takes to save her species from extermination, but also what it means to be human.

Excerpt:

“I don’t have much time. You need to know that Frodur’s lying. He’s not on your side for your case.”

Ev gawped at him, her drink suspended in midair. “How would you know?”

“I know a lot of things, Ms. Kovach. Let’s see. I’ll bet that the first thing Frodur did was make you drink some concoction to settle your nerves, right? Which put you to sleep before he could tell you anything more than the most basic information about what’s going on here.”

Her eyes grew wider as he continued.

“You think the outcome of that hearing was your fault. It wasn’t. Frodur set you up hoping you’d do something like that. He and the prosecutor run the defendants through this same schtick each time—mind games, made-up laws that are nearly impossible to beat, surprise hearings. I know because I’ve been the transcriber for these cases. Every one.”

Ev regarded Urtu in speechless wonder. She’d never considered that Frodur could be part of a conspiracy against her species. She hated conspiracy theories because they almost never turned out to be true. Except for the conspiracy theory about the alien abductions back home, she realized. So maybe this one wasn’t so farfetched either. Urtu had certainly nailed his description of Frodur’s actions.

“Frodur? And the prosecutor?” she managed to ask.

“Are working together,” he responded before she could finish. “To make it as difficult as possible for you to win the trial.”