Neal James is a space station navigator whose lover, Dylan Teague, left him for a starmapping mission. But when Dylan radios in a distant signal one night, Neal discovers that he hasn't managed to put the relationship behind him in the two months they've been apart. When he's one of the crew members sent to investigate the signal, he finds that his ex-lover feels the same.<br><br>The source of the signal is a lost colony ship. Only a handful of the original colonists remain, survivors of a deadly disease that killed most of their fellow shipmates twenty years ago. To keep the threat of disease to a minimum, the colony adheres to strict laws, including the prohibition of same-sex relationships.<br><br>When the same fatal virus seems to appear again, Neal and Dylan find themselves in the midst of an irrational panic and hate that threatens to destroy everything the colonists have worked so hard to attain.

Operation Starseed

There’s enough pilots to send out more—the fighters don’t mind


going on short mapping jaunts, it’s sitting around the station all


day doing nothing that wears them down—but we’re out of navigators.


All crews need a navigator, it’s space law, and we only have two


left on the ship. One of them is Dixon’s own who stays up on the


bridge most days, I don’t think I’ve seen her in weeks.


I’m a tech but I have nav training and I’m


licensed, which pisses Dixon off to no end, I’m sure. He threw that


up in my face when I asked to be transferred to Dylan’s crew. “He


already has a navigator,” he told me. I said send me as a tech


then, and he laughed. “And if something happens to one of my crews?


If I needanother navigator out there? What do I say, so


sorry, he’s out with his boyfriend, check back later? I don’t think


Around us the lights dim and the stars on


the screen seem to burn brighter. Dixon looks at me when he says,


Chapter 11