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Captain, I suggest you start planning your operations,” he concluded. “You will have complete freedom of action, once you cross the border, as we don’t know enough about enemy territory to offer precise instructions. I strongly advise you not to waste your time—or your authority.”
    Of course , Kat agreed, as she rose too. It was independent command on a scale she hadn’t expected, even with her father’s patronage, for years. But if she failed and survived, she’d never be allowed to sit in a command chair again. I won’t get a second chance .
    “And don’t tell anyone we met,” he added, turning to leave. “It would only confuse their small minds.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    If there is a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than here , Commander William McElney thought as he strode through the asteroid, I don’t want to see it.
    He kept his face impassive, somehow, despite the urge to sneak back out of the asteroid and return with a small flotilla of patrol ships. There were countless warrants, he was sure, that could be settled overnight if the Royal Navy raided the asteroid cluster and captured the inhabitants. The Burton System existed on the very edge of civilized space, on the no-man’s-land between the Commonwealth and the Theocracy; it was no surprise, perhaps, that the wretched refuse of both systems had congregated here, beyond the reach of either power. No one cared about the Burton System, save for those with nowhere to go. It was, after all, largely worthless.
    Unless you’re interested in smuggling goods from one power to the other , he thought. Or if you wanted to find something you couldn’t get anywhere else.
    He sighed as he walked past the stalls—offering everything from illegal drugs and stimulant programs to weapons that were banned even on Heinlein—and the prostitutes standing beside them, doing their very best to lure him into their arms for a night. None of them looked particularly appealing; indeed, he had a feeling that most of them had started life as penniless girls, tricked into slavery, if they hadn’t been captured by pirates and sold to pimps. One of them, kneeling on the ground with her mouth wide open, had had her teeth knocked out, probably to keep her from biting her customers. William wanted to do something—anything—to help her, but what could he do? As far as they knew, he was nothing more than an independent trader, one of many who wanted nothing more than food, drink, sex, and supplies, perhaps not in that order. He shook his head, mentally, and looked away. There was nothing he could do.
    “Hey,” a voice called. “I have sims here, just for the discerning customer.”
    William recoiled as the man shoved his datapad in William’s face. It showed a list of simulations, ranging from mild pornography to scenarios he hadn’t believed physically possible until he’d left his homeworld for the first time. Fighting down the urge to punch the hustler as hard as he could, he shook his head firmly and walked on, checking his pockets out of habit. Someone could easily have used the moment of distraction as an opportunity to pick his pocket, despite the risk. The asteroid’s rulers might cater to everyone who had money, but they policed their territory with an iron hand. Allowing their inhabitants to steal from clients was bad for business.
    He gritted his teeth, then walked into the larger cavern. A dozen men, all clearly from the Theocracy, were buying up every starship component on sale, offering prices that were obviously inflated. William smirked, remembering what the Commonwealth had concluded about the Theocracy from earlier dealings, then walked past as another group of men started complaining loudly. The Theocrats were driving up the prices for everyone, not just themselves, and they might well put a few dozen ships right out of business. They might even have planned it that way, William considered. A few booths down, there was an agent hiring cargo vessels