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Galen contacts him first—he's kidnapped Ivan, who was escorting a society matron to a flower show, and demands a meeting at the Thames Tidal Barrier. Miles takes Galeni and Elli and goes to meet Galen and Mark, where he makes his pitch: Mark and Ivan in exchange for half a million Imperial marks and Galen's promise to retire from the rebellion. Galen double-crosses them and orders Mark to kill Miles and Galeni. Mark hesitates, and when Galen grabs for his nerve disruptor, Mark shoots him instead. Before they can escape, however, they have to elude not only the Barrayaran hit squad, but a team of Cetagandans that are also after Admiral Naismith, and the local police, who have been called to investigate the disturbance in the area. In the end, Miles, Mark, Ivan, Elli, and Galeni all make it out in one piece. Miles upholds the bargain he made to Mark, giving him the half-million marks in exchange for Mark helping him to free Ivan, and sets Mark free as well. Miles gets one last surprise as the Dendarii receive orders to stop a hostage situation involving Barrayarans—Ky Tung is retiring from the mercenary trade and getting married, leaving the Dendarii with a loss of one of their best commanding officers.

Mirror Dance (1994)

Winner of the Hugo and Locus Awards for Best Novel

The first Vorkosigan novel to be told from two viewpoints, it begins two years later, with Mark Vorkosigan posing as Miles to take command of the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet. He leads the Ariel and a team of commandos to Jackson's Whole to free the clones raised by House Bharaputra for its brain-transplant operations. Although he gets them there, the operation falls apart against fiercer-than-expected resistance, leaving him, the Dendarii, and the clones trapped planetside. Meanwhile, Miles, coming back from an assignment with Elli, learns what happened, and heads to Jackson's Whole to save Mark and his mercenaries. When negotiations with Vasa Luigi, the baron of House Bharaputra, break down, Miles goes down to get his brother and men back himself. It is a fatal decision, as Miles is shot with a needle grenade and killed. He is put into a cryo-chamber for later resuscitation, but Mark and the medic get cut off from the rest of their squad, and Mark gives him directions through an underground tunnel system to escape, then heads back to help the others get out. He makes it back to the rescue shuttle, only to discover on the ship that they don't have Miles's cryo-chamber. They negotiate with Baron Fell for the return of the chamber, but the baron's men cannot locate it either. Mark discovers that before getting killed, the medic had shipped the chamber to an unknown address through an automated cargo dock, leaving Mark and the Dendarii with no way of finding him. Taken back to Barrayar, Mark is introduced to his parents, as well as life on Barrayar, including his role as the potential Vorkosigan heir, should Miles not be recovered. During this time, Aral suffers an arterial aneurism, which incapacitates him. Fully aware of his potential role in House Vorkosigan and on Barrayar, and wanting no part of it, Mark gets permission to review the ImpSec files for Miles's whereabouts, believing him to still be somewhere on Jackson's Whole. When he finds evidence of where his brother's remains were shipped, he gets Cordelia's approval to mount a rescue mission. Meanwhile, Miles begins his slow recovery in the hands of the Durona family, a cloned group of doctors created by House Ryoval, but which escaped to House Fell, and who now serve as the physicians for the upper echelons of the House. Miles's recovery is slow and painful, hampered by the fact that he has lost his memory, but is helped when he falls for one of his doctors, Rowan Durona. Mark, Elli, and Bel Thorne arrive on the planet to recover Miles, but the price is getting the Durona clan off Jackson's Whole, away from the barons completely. Before they can negotiate the Deal, security from House Ryoval break in and kidnap Mark. Miles and Rowan are taken by security from House Bharaputra. Mark is tortured