She takes that in. Four years without access to normal resupply. It's hard for her to imagine how a ship could keep flying under those conditions, or how it could have happened in the first place. Catastrophic L-space astrogation error could do it, but that would be making far too many assumptions.

'I'm sorry,' she settles on. 'That must have been... I cant imagine how you ended up so far out, but it's to your credit, and your ship's, that you survived it, and you deserve all the booze and coffee you want now.' Tayrey chews on her lower lip. 'I'm aware,' she says carefully, 'that anything I have to say about provisioning you'll already be painfully conscious of, but I suspect some of the people here, at least, are complacent about it.' Some from the prison ship. The locals know enough about isolation and self-sufficiency that she's hoping they have better sense. 'I've already started building up private stores and I'd recommend doing the same.'