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fuel, for expenditures.”
    Casting about for a way to control her emotional reaction, she thought of what Garcia would say. That mercenary bastard would never let emotion get in the way of money. “For our cargo?”
    Daspar paused, thinking. With a little surprise, she realized he was not considering whether or not it was worth it, but whether or not he could pull it off. Not whether she deserved the promise, but whether he had the authority to make it.
    “Yes. For your cargo, if it’s unrecoverable.”
    It was a good deal. It was a deal she had to take, both by the law of Altair and by the law of economics. But it still made her insides clench in terror to say the words. “Accepted, Commander.”
    “Please,” he said, “call me Kyle.”
    They flew hops for another sixteen hours. Kyle used his authority on the refugees, cutting through the sea of complaints to find the ones that needed help now, the ones dying or without water, instead of the merely injured and without food. He browbeat those who had plenty into sharing with those who had nothing, threatened the aggressive and comforted the meek, appointed officers and managers, and assured everyone that Altair Fleet was on its way. With no more than his voice and his badge, he brought order out of chaos.
    Prudence would have been impressed, if she had been able to think about anything other than how tired she was.
    Standing on the bridge, he watched her fly. The scrutiny made her nervous, vaguely, but the blanket of exhaustion muffled everything.
    This was the last trip they would make tonight. An arctic research station had gotten a radio working and called for help. Bombed out of their installation, they would freeze to death soon. They’d already burned what was left of their building for warmth.
    Garcia had stayed at the refugee camp, organizing the distribution of supplies. Prudence had cajoled the rest of her crew into one more flight.
    “Melvin,” she said over the intercom, “give me a heading.” They were using the targeting system to home in on the radio signal. Without GPS, it was like finding a snowflake in a blizzard. But GPS depended on global satellites, and those had been the first things destroyed by the attack.
    “Left three degrees … Wait. There’s another one. There’s some kind of radio source out there, to starboard. And it’s close!” Melvin was exhausted, too. He slipped into panic without any resistance.
    “Is it moving, Mel?”
    A pause. “No … I don’t think so.”
    Kyle was helping Jorgun with his console, working the communications system like an old pro. He’d said the police system wasn’t that different. Now he pointed out something Jorgun would have missed. “It’s not another colonist. The signal is wrong—it doesn’t plug into our comm protocols.”
    She resented his automatic suspicion. That was her role. “Maybe they jury-rigged a system.”
    “No,” he said, contradicting her without hesitation. “It’s too regular. I can’t decode it, but it’s repeating. It has to be a distress beacon. It has to be one of theirs. The enemy.”
    Jorgun offered his best to the conversation. “If they’re in distress, we should help them. It’s the right thing to do.”
    “They might not want our help, Jorgun.” Kyle was surprisingly gentle with him. She hadn’t expected that from a man wearing a League armband. “But I agree with you anyway. We should help them into the brig.”
    “Are you kidding?” said Prudence. “My ship is unarmed.” All they had were rifles and handguns.
    And the hidden pod of missiles, but Prudence was not about to reveal those. The miswired laser had been a regulations violation. The unregistered missiles were a crime.
    “I’m not kidding.” His voice was hoarse. He’d spent hours talking, bullying, persuading. “These are the people that did this. They need to be held to account.”
    “Letting them freeze isn’t good enough for you?”
    Gray with fatigue, he stared at