It's A Deadly Job, But Somebody's Gotta Do It

"Nope. It's got to be fresh. Even if they preserved it well, Tempest could tell the difference if the blood were out of your veins half a second."

"Tempest is sentient!" I exclaimed. "Can't he just look at me?"

"Well," Commander Fear said, "I guess that would have worked too, but we didn't want to give Tempest control over the NOVA drive."

"But you just said-"

"I know what I said! In truth, all shipboard systems are run through Tempest. However, the biometrics system and NOVA drive are only slaved through his matrix. He can use his processor to plot a course and read your bios, but he can't activate the NOVA drive."

"Wonderful," I said as the needles retracted. The grips on my hands released, and I pulled away, rubbing the sting out of my palms.

"Don't worry, Jon. This was just to set the standard. It won't last as long in the future."

"It's the needles going in I hate. It doesn't matter how long they stay in."

"Sounds like someone has a phobia," Tempest said mockingly. His voice shifted to baby talk. "Does wittle Jonny want his mommy? Did those nasty needles hurt the baby?"

Fear hid a smile. "I guess it's time I told you a little about your mission." I turned to face the commander, not really interested in getting my new orders. So far, my new assignment wasn't looking good, and I was in no hurry to see how High Command planned to make it worse.

"You're familiar with the Trellix, right?"

"Short guys," I answered, paraphrasing the entry in High Command's Guide to the Sentient Species of the Known Universe - Understanding Our Enemies, 47th Edition.

"Four arms, bipedal. Look kind of like salamanders. Smooth, slimy skin. No hair. Long tongues. Their diet consists mainly of blatarq, which are kind of like shrimp, and mioosh, a slime mold native to their homeworld of Trella VI."

"That's pretty good, Jon," Commander Fear told me. "But did you know the Trellix 'see' what we hear?" I shook my head, not remembering that from the entry. "It's true. Their visual receptors pick up the same frequencies we hear."

"You mean they can't see in a vacuum?"

"Nope. Suffice it to say, we've had a little trouble communicating with the Trellix. A few years back they sent us a list of grievances, but-"

"What were their grievances?" I almost enjoyed interrupting him.

Fear cast his eyes to the ground. "We haven't been able to decipher their language yet," he admitted, trying not to look embarrassed. "High Command's a little ashamed of this, but they're too proud to tell the Trellix. From what little we've been able to read, they think we're too loud. That is, they tend to go blind if they're around Humans too long. And something about our smell bothers them."

"I can vouch for that one," Tempest said, but both Fear and I ignored him.

Fear shrugged. "They had a couple hundred more complaints on their list, but they're really immaterial. What's important is that the Trellix are building a trix bomb."

"A trix bomb?" I asked dumbly.

"An explosive device utilizing trix as its explosive," Tempest told me. "You're an idiot, Jonny."

"A trix bomb," Commander Fear repeated, "powerful enough to wipe out an entire planet. Actually, this one might be a little more powerful."

"How much more powerful?" I asked suspiciously.

"We think they're making a bomb capable of causing a sun to supernova."

"And their target is . . ."

"Earth." Fear finished, his voice cold. "That is, we think their target is our sun, which, if it supernovas, will destroy the five inhabited planets, not to mention the colonized moons and asteroids, and about half a trillion citizens of the FEDs."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "I thought making explosives out of trix was universally considered a bad idea. Who'd be stupid enough to waste several tons of trix on one bomb?"

"The Trellix, apparently," Tempest replied. "Haven't you been paying attention?"

I glared at the console, but chose not to respond to the AI's goading. "Wouldn't it be smarter to wipe out the citizens, then colonize the planets themselves?"

"The Trellix apparently aren't interested in expanding their empire," Commander Fear answered. "Only in shrinking ours."

"What about the Genosha Accords?" I asked desperately. "I thought the Confederation of Sentient, Corporeal, Intelligent Entities and Crude Earthlings outlawed the use of trix-based weapons."