The Sword of Io
This was another short story that was a challenge story. Write a science-fiction military story about valor. By the time this challenge came along I had a number of novels in my military romantic suspense series The Night Stalkers. And the series was successful enough. I had a second contract for more novels, as well as a spin-off series about wildland firefighting helicopters called Firehawks.
Also, I was no longer quite so afraid of the short story format as I had been a year and a half earlier. So, I did my best to recreate the way I’d written that first story The Ghost of Willow’s Past… I went for a walk with my wife.
I have consistently found that one of the keys for me to write a successful short story is to narrow, and again narrow the scope until the story is alm
