Scanned by Highroller. Proofed by a ProofPack Proofer. Made prettier by use of EBook Design Group Stylesheet. Ice Prison by Kathleen Sky PROLOGUE Mithras was a frozen hell of a planet a blizzards joy a haven for hurricanes and a toy forglaciers. Covered with permafrost and whipped by high speed winds it should have been uselessas a place for men to live. But there were minerals under the frozen tundra and there were menand women the Confederation did not want on any of its other planets. The ConfederationColonial Service or CCS had put Mithras to use as a penal colony and had transported theriffraff of the galaxy to its frozen wastes. Most of the early convicts died in the bittercold those that survived bred generations of miners for the CCS. The planet was nowtechnically only a mining colony—but those who had to live there knew better. It was still aprison. The CCS had established a main cave in the horseshoe-shaped ridge of hills that made up theonly inhabited area on the planet. The Colonial Service section was at the back of the low halfcircle the mines curved away to the west and on the east was the Homecave. This was the closest thing to a real home the Mithrans would ever know. It was a bank of cavesand grottos—man-made cut into solid cold rock by the first prisoners. No tunnel connected theHomecave to the CCS cave. Originally there had been such a tunnel but after five convict uprisings it was deemedadvisable to seal off any connecting area between the colonists and the people who governedthem. The policy was set early and stayed locked into a chance-formed system. Howell looked out of his bubble-sled at the sheer-walled cliffs and the swirling snow and knewhe wasnt going to like Mithras. He was a cold and lonely man well suited for a life here butthe CCS had warned him that Mithras was not very likely to make that life pleasant… or toolong. CHAPTER ONE quotCommander Gulimel do you mean to tell me all of this was caused by a