But What Will The Gods Eat Tomorrow?

High Command wasn’t likely to waste one of those techs on something as trivial as a volume control.

I’d keep filing the paperwork though. Eventually someone would screw up.

"Jonny?" When I ignored him, he repeated, "Jonny? You still with me, Jonny? Normally you close your eyes when you’re sleeping. Aren’t you going to answer me?"

I would have settled for a mute button.

"What!" I snapped, squeezing my eyes shut. The aspirin wasn’t helping.

"I thought you’d want to know that a number of ships just novaed into the system. They’ve entered sensor range and are on a course to Vartherik II."

A tiny wave of excitement passed though me. "Is it the convoy we’ve been waiting for?"

From Tempest’s console came a sound like an exasperated sigh. "If I knew that, don’t you think I would have said, ‘The convoy we’ve been waiting for just novaed into the system. It’s entered sensor range and is on a course to Vartherik II’?"

I took a deep, calming breath, and carefully worded my next question. "How long before you can make a positive identification on the approaching ships?"

"At their present velocity, six minutes, forty-two seconds."

"Inform me as soon as you have made the identification."

There was a pregnant pause, as if Tempest were deciding whether to be serious or sarcastic. He chose serious. "Of course, Commander Cougar."

I let out a relieved sigh and settled back in my chair, doing what I did most of the time. Wait. If you asked me, I do it pretty well, considering.

Tempest and I had been here three days, waiting to intercept a trix convoy en route to Vartherik II. At least, that’s what High Command told us we were doing. But the convoy had been scheduled to arrive two days ago, and these were the first ships we’d seen since novaing into the system.

So much for Fleet Intelligence.

Admiral Dawson from Fleet Command had been the one to outline the mission for us. "Intelligence indicates that the Cult of Timay is amassing a large stockpile of trix in the Vartherik system."

With exaggerated calmness, I asked. "Do you think they’re designing a trix weapon?" I hoped they weren’t. Despite the reputation I was getting at High Command, I wasn’t particularly fond of flying blindly into danger, destroying one well-defended base after another.

"High Command has no idea why the cult is stockpiling trix, and High Command doesn’t like not knowing things." Admiral Dawson threw a manila folder at me. I opened it and looked at the handful of still-shots–Vartherik II; the Cult’s main temple complex on Soufpach Prime; and the man presumed to be their leader, Mahrisi Obodogewa Timay. Frowning, I leafed through the rest of the data Fleet Intelligence had given High Command.

"Wouldn’t it have been easier," I asked the admiral, perhaps a bit too boldly, "to put this information on a disk? Ignoring the complete waste of paper, think of all the time it’s going to take to scan this into the Dragon’s database. It’ll be at least a day before I can disembark! But with a disk…Well, I could be prepping the Dragon for launch already by now and…"

And finding out if this is the mission that gets me killed, I added to myself, realizing that shutting up would be a good idea.

Dawson’s eyes flashed, and I knew I’d stopped talking a few words too late. The old man stood, and his left eye began to twitch. "Commander Fear might put up with your insolence," he said in a growl, "and indulge your rebelliousness. Maybe a few of the younger admirals do as well, but you better learn to watch your tongue, pilot. And you had better start calling your ship a Fish.