Carl Obermeier, a cadet at the Time Corps Academy, discovers he has been admitted to his second year on Conditional status. This is due to his high “emotional liability.” He is advised to mediate and study the precepts and disciplines of the Corps. But on his first day back, his class is shown an example of Temporal Crime committed by the Time Pirates, enemy of the Ordered Society, and he is smitten by the pirate Armand’s beauty. Troubled, Carl remains true to the Corps when he is kidnapped by the pirates and meets Armand face to face.<br><br>Armand lives a free and easy life with the pirates ... until he sees Carl, and realizes the cadet has fallen for him.<br><br>As the pirates deprogram Carl from the rigid tenets of the Ordered Society, the two men fall in love. But a pirate’s life is never safe, and when Armand fails to return from an Action against the OS Marines, Carl steps up to save him. Unfortunately the men are caught on either side of the Time War. Can they find their way out?

Renegades from the Time War

“So, you’re all homosexual then?”


Jamal laughed—a deep, joyful sound. “We prefer the word ‘gay’,” he said, “but that’s right—all gay.”


Carl repressed some of the standard words of derision that moiled automatically inside his head—not only did he not want to give Jamal an excuse to beat him up, but he already liked the big, gentle giant enough to not want to offend him.


“Okay,” he said, “gay then. But are all pirates—gay?” Again, he repressed the words that had come to mind, like ‘deviant’ and ‘perversion’.


Jamal laughed again and shook his head. “We’re just like everyone else: gay, straight, mixed. Some pirate groups—Holdswe call them—are one, some another. Ours just happens to be gay.” He shrugged. “We find it works.”


Carl continued to regard the big man, who stared back at him, a smirk on his face.


“I’m guessing you’ll be wondering about what you saw in the Operations Room.”


Carl didn’t respond, but Jamal took this for assent.


Chapter 14