Ichliad Brunner is a member of a minor line of Clan Lysta, a meteorologist, and for most of the events of this story, working under contract at a space station orbing the planet Klamath, which is unfortunately engaged in a nasty war.

Miri Robertson, at this point, is not yet Val Con's lifemate and one half of Delm Korval. In fact, she hasn't met him, is still hardly more than a kid, and is a corporal in Liz Lizardi's Lizardi's Lunatics mercenary company.

When a Scout arrives with an advanced piece of meteorological tracking and reporting device, and a proposal to deploy it with the Lizardi Lunatics, and have the station, specifically Brunner, in charge of receiving and handling the information. After some back and forth on the station, this is agreed to, and Brunner is introduced to Corporal Robertson, teaches her the use of the equipment, and begins an intermittent friendship at long distance. And as the conflict on the planet gets worse, Robertson is in extreme danger, even as the space station commander gets more worried about the political ramifications of being in contact with one of the military units involved in the conflict.

Brunner is ordered to stop, and has a fateful decision to make. Obey orders, or follow his own professional ethics and personal commitment to Robertson?

He makes a decision.

Ten years later, in a different crisis on a different planet, it comes back to bite him.

This is a good story with good characters. Much of the action is in fact the characters confronting moral, ethical, and intellectual conflicts, but Robertson is down on the planet, facing combat, severe weather, and unusually active tectonic plates.

I really enjoyed it.

I bought this book. ( )

Miri and the mercenaries on doomed Klamath, as seen by a weatherman on the station above. ( )