But What Will The Gods Eat Tomorrow?

It didn’t sound like he liked admitting it, though.

Laser scanners beamed through space all around us, striking off nearby asteroids and taking their readings back to the Aardvark. Simultaneously, other scans were being conducted, most of them by particles we couldn’t see. The atmosphere in the cabin was thick with anticipation, and even Tempest kept his mouth shut until the Aardvark was past.

"Never thought we’d make it!" I said.

"Then why did you even try this!"

I shrugged. "Death wish?"

"I can’t believe I have to share a spacecraft with you…"

"God-complex?" I offered, infuriating him more.

"…stupid Human. Gonna get us both killed with his stupidity…"

"Rugged charm and an overdeveloped and unfounded belief in my abilities, fostered by the quasi-fascist military regime I serve?" I was enjoying myself.

"You annoy me."

"The feeling’s mutual, Toolbox," I told him, then turned on the vid screen. "Wait until there’s only one ship left, then bring the engines and flight controls online. Keep energy levels to a minimum. I’d hate for one of the freighters to spot us accidentally."

I stretched my shoulders, worked the kinks from my back, and loosened my fingers. When I heard the thrum from the fusion reactor, I reached out and put my hands on the flight controls. "Retract the mooring line," I said when the final freighter had passed.

I gunned the engines into reverse even as Tempest wheeled in our mooring line. The Dragon backed away from the asteroid at a dangerous speed. I turned to the left and hit the forward throttle, loving the whine of the engines as they shifted directions. The Dragon shot forward, narrowly missing collisions with several small asteroids.

"Why can’t you fly more carefully?" Tempest whined. "You’re going to dent me. I mean, you’re going to dent the Dragon. If you don’t blow it up first!"

"I haven’t crashed yet," I said, steering the Dragon out of the asteroid belt and aiming it toward the last ship in the convoy. The freighter had four fusion engines, with a blue contrail extending from each. I studied the configuration, then aimed for the center and gunned the throttle to full.

"You’ll never survive in there!" Tempest warned me after reading the sensor data. "The engine wash is too hot."

"Trust me," I told him as I plunged the Dragon into the contrails.

The temperature in the cockpit began to rise immediately. Sweat beaded on my brow and then began to drip down my face. Tempest periodically called out the temperature, as if I needed a reminder. "External hull temperature 500 Kelvin. Internal temperature 320 Kelvin"

It was getting hot inside, and I could barely keep the sweat from my eyes. "Internal temperature 330 Kelvin." At least it was a dry heat. "External hull temperature 700 Kelvin. Internal temperature 335 Kelvin. You better pull out, Jonny."

I ignored him. I was starting to get dizzy, but we were almost there. For a moment, I didn’t think we were going to make it. "Internal temperature 34–Hey! The temperature’s falling! What’s going on?"

I smiled to myself. "We’re in the engine node," I said triumphantly. "Maintain this position relative to the freighter. Deviation by more than a few meters could result in the ship being fried."

"We’re only a few meters from the rear of the freighter?"

"That’s why we don’t feel the wash, Scrapheap!"

There was a brief pause. "It’s going to be tough to anticipate any changes in the speed or direction of the freighter."

"Why don’t you use your highly sophisticated matrix?" I suggested with a chuckle. "And aren’t you connected to the sensors? Shouldn’t you know where the ship is at all times? Why do you sound so surprised?"

There was another pause.