Eryx is part of a team of scientists charged with monitoring and protecting relocated animals on a privately owned planet. When sensors indicate poachers, Eryx leaves base to confront them, only to lose his way in a sudden snow. After trudging to a nearby observation station for shelter, he comes across an unexpected intruder.<br><br>Smuggler Leander flies an old, sometimes unreliable ship. When the engine starts to fail, he attempts to set down on the nearest planet where he’s stashed supplies, but his descent turns into a crash, and he’s forced to take shelter wherever he can.<br><br>The two can’t possibly trust each other, but storm projections show they’ll be stuck together for days. Worse, the poachers aren’t letting a little inclement weather stop them, and they’re armed and ready to kill. Can Leander and Eryx put aside their differences and save the animals -- and themselves -- before something disastrous happens?

Under Snow and Stars

Leander did it for him. “Oh, because youmeant to be here. You weren’t out doing science in this, and you wouldn’t be hunting down poachers by yourself—don’t they run in groups of four at least?—so it looks like you got stuck out here, too.” Leander grinned, letting Eryx know that the man was seeing his displeasure. “What makes a guy like you walk off the job into a snowstorm? Get in a fight? Get rejected?”


“I was after the poachers. Yeah, alone. Yeah, I should’ve had someone to have my back. You ever spend too long in the same nine hundred square feet?”


“My ship’s about two-thirty livable space, including bridge.”


“And you don’t kill each other?” Leander almost looked impressed.


Eryx gestured around Base Four. “Five hundred, even sharing with you, is practically a vacation.”


“And I’m not even taking up that much space,” said Leander brightly.


Chapter 10