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

“We have a few rooms you can use but he told you our policy, right?


He told you the virus is probably sexually transmitted, right?”


With a short laugh, Parker asks, “So what,


you don’t want us porking your girls? No problem. We weren’t really


“Shut up,” I tell him. That’s not what


he’s talking about, not at all. If this were about the women here,


he wouldn’t be looking at me the way he is, he wouldn’t have a


problem telling us hands off. “You mean me and Dylan.”


Ellington nods, relieved. “You have to


“What about us?” Dylan asks, confused.


“Are you saying—I thought he said the virus is gone now. I


“Wedon’t have it—everyone gets a monthly bioscan, and the


women are monitored every week when they’re expecting. I’m not


saying it’s disappeared but we make damn sure we’re not going to


lose anyone else to it. As far as we know, it hasn’t resurfaced in


Chapter 48