Life on the run is no way to live, but neither is being abandoned on a treacherous planet when you're just a kid. Auden and T'tireva, daughters of a pilot dishonorably discharged from the Consulate Navy, are on the run. Inexplicably left behind by their loving, fugitive parents after a crash landing, the sisters toil for little reward and look for them ... or an explanation for why they were abandoned. Dealing with a bureaucracy pitted against their interests, they are determined to survive until their parents' return. If they return. But being stranded on a world in an inhospitable planetary system does not remove the threat of being captured by the Consulate Navy. A jealous admiral with a personal vendetta is willing to go to any lengths to get what he is after. Even if that means silencing the Mor children permanently. Can the girls face a life without hope?