Bard Welstaad is a model Uni-Fleet officer. He’s not sure what his unit is to accomplish, marching up an icy peninsula in the frozen hell of Gelada, but without his NCO, Gordon Farrell, he knows he could not keep the unit together fighting off Snow Wasps and the savage deadly cold. Not until tragedy strikes does he admit the big sergeant means much more to him than simply being his right hand man.<br><br>Gordon Farrell idolizes his captain, who represents everything he reveres. The threat of imminent death finally forces him to admit the strength of his feelings as he fights to save Bard’s life. With death stalking at their heels, they can only hope to live long enough to share more than a single incredible night. Fate seems to conspire against them at every turn. Still they cling to the frail hope that somehow their love will find a way.

Fire on Ice

Bard made his way along the face, swinging out and then in again like a pendulum, edging closer to the fallen man. It had to be Gordon. No one else had the same bulk. It seemed to take forever to get there. In reality only a couple of minutes elapsed.


The bigger man was unconscious. Bard refused to consider the possibility he might be dead or so far gone in hypothermia that he might as well be. Working in clumsy haste, he rigged a harness around the other man’s inert shape. Once he had Gordon linked to the ropes, he gave three sharp jerks on his line and then simply held on, unable to make the ascender work against their combined weight. Gordon was the heaviest man in the unit.


Chapter 10