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voice trailed off.  “I understand,” Hoshiko said.  “You encountered us.”
     
    “The sensors were so badly battered I didn't realise just how closely they were following us,” Ryman confessed.  “I didn’t mean to lead them right to you.”
     
    “We survived,” Hoshiko said.  “What are they doing on Amstar?”
     
    “They’re killing everyone who refuses to submit,” Ryman said.  “Perhaps they would have dealt with us earlier, but they were rather occupied.  It’s like bloody Paris in some of the giant megacities, Captain.  Everyone is fighting like mad bastards because they know they’re all going to be killed.  I heard of children being gassed, men and women being firebombed ... the only thing keeping them from destroying the cities from orbit is the presence of their own settlements.  But I don’t see how the defenders can hold out for long.  They didn't have many weapons when the Tokomak withdrew and hardly any time to build up an arsenal since.  No one expected a coup.”
     
    He shuddered.  “They have some people fighting on their side,” he added.  “One of them ... one of them hurt my daughter.  I could do nothing to help her.”
     
    Hoshiko forced herself to remain calm.  “How did you get so many people here safely?”
     
    “Everything we could think of,” Ryman said.  “Used sedative gas to keep them quiet and content, recycled damn near everything we could to feed ourselves ... built makeshift air scrubbers out of spare parts and jury-rigged everything else we could.  How many did we lose?”
     
    “Nineteen on the trip,” Hoshiko said.  She decided not to mention the refugees who’d been killed when the freighter was attacked.  “We’re having the refugees shipped down to the planet now.”
     
    “The Druavroks will come after them,” Ryman said.  “I don't think this is a localised uprising, Captain.  They didn’t have sole control of the Amstar Defence Force before the coup.  Those ships might have come from their homeworld itself.”
     
    “And with the Tokomak gone, they might be thinking of a little empire-building of their own,” Hoshiko said.  It was a chilling thought.  She had a duty to preserve human lives and now human lives were under threat.  “Taking Amstar and its gravity points will give them a stranglehold on economic development throughout parts of the sector.”
     
    “Taking Martina will do the same,” Ryman pointed out.  “But I think they’re more interested in genocide, Captain.  Those bastards slaving for them are likely to be the last to be eaten, but they will be eaten.”
     
    “That is probably true,” Hoshiko said.  Where did her responsibilities lie?  She had a duty to preserve human life ... and humans were under threat.  And, if other races were also under threat, there was an opportunity in the midst of tragedy.  She had orders to find new allies for humanity, if she could.  “Thank you for your time, Captain.”
     
    “My ship,” Ryman said.  “What will happen to her?”
     
    “She really requires a full-scale refit,” Hoshiko said.  The bean-counters would probably insist on Ryman buying a new freighter and scrapping the old one, even though she’d managed to get her master and commander out of a lethal hole.  “My engineering crews have secured her, for the moment, but it would take months to repair her.”
     
    “I’m not giving her up,” Ryman insisted, firmly.  “She’s come a long way.”
     
    “A very long way,” Hoshiko agreed.  She understood the overwhelming impulse to protect one’s ship, even though cold logic insisted that repairing the older ship was pointless.  “She will be turned back to you, after you recover.  After that ... what you do is your own choice.”
     
    Ryman nodded and yawned, loudly.  Shari hurried over to him, inspected the life support machine, then jerked her head towards the hatch.  Hoshiko understood; she rose, nodded goodbye to the