Sharkton counted eleven survivors in the frozen hangar, and she had no ship to fly a single one out. The tundra pressed against the base walls. Frost crawled up the metal each hour. Two colonists near the door had stopped shivering, which meant the cold was winning. Sharkton spread her white wings over them for warmth and made herself a promise. She would carry these people off this planet before the ice took them. The old freighter sat in the hangar, dead. Its engine core had cracked in the last freeze. Sharkton climbed inside and pried open the panel with numb hands. The wiring was black and brittle. She needed a power source to jump the core, and every battery in the base was drained. A scratching sound came from the vents. Sharkton turned. A red fox trotted out of the shadows, calm and unbothered by the cold. It wore a small black top hat, tipped over one ear. The fox had lived in the base tunnels for months, stealing scraps. The survivors called it a mascot. Sharkton called it clever. "You know the warm places," she said. The fox flicked its tail and trotted toward the rear tunnel. Sharkton followed. The fox led her past collapsed corridors to a sealed maintenance room. Sharkton forced the door. Inside sat the emergency reactor cell, still humming faint and blue. The base engineers had hidden it here before they died. The fox sat on top of it, proud, hat straight. Sharkton hauled the cell back to the freighter. Her wings ached. Her fingers bled from the cold metal. She locked the cell into the engine core and threw the switch. Nothing. She threw it again. The core coughed, then caught. Light spread through the freighter. Warm air hissed from the vents. She carried each survivor aboard, one by one, and strapped them into the seats. The two frozen colonists breathed again as the cabin warmed. The fox hopped in last and curled on a seat like it owned the ship. Sharkton took the pilot's chair. She fired the thrusters. The freighter lifted, groaned, and tore free of the ice. The tundra fell away below. Eleven survivors were alive and rising. Then the console flashed red. Fuel: one-quarter. The reactor cell had power to reach orbit, but not enough to reach any safe world. Sharkton stared at the number. She had won her ship and lost her destination. Somewhere above the clouds she would have to find harbor before the fuel ran dry, and she had no idea what waited there.