Mls Vorkosigan graduates from the Barrayaran Army Academy with goals of ship control, so he’s disappointed using the project of meteorologist for an arctic training camp. But his tenure in the snow-covered north is definitely cut brief when he narrowly averts a massacre between your trigger-happy bottom commander and mutinous recruits.

Mls is reassigned to research a suspicious army buildup near a wormhole nexus. Reviving his undercover persona as mercenary Admiral Miles Naismith, he expands his routine information-gathering duty right into a recovery mission when the Emperor of Barrayar disappears. Kilometers must make use of his negotiating skills in order to avoid a showdown between forces competing for control of the wormhole, while looking for the Emperor and watching his back again for the arctic foundation commander seeking bloody vengeance.