Kill by Numbers: In the Wake of the Templars Book Two by Loren Rhoads Page A

of green for everyone. “I’m amazed they got it to work once, let alone installed in all those ships.”
    “Getting it to work isn’t the problem,” Vezali countered. “Getting it to stop is a whole ’nother thing. Remember all those plague ships that arrived at their destinations after all the Templars onboard were dead?”
    “You think all the tesseract ships that have been lost might show up someday?” Mykah asked.
    “Who can say? They went somewhere, whether through space or in time or into another dimension. It’s Templar tech. Their philosophy was really fascinating,” Vezali chirped, full of enthusiasm—or catching a buzz from the green, Raena wasn’t sure. “Have you read any of it?”
    The conversation spun onward, but Raena leaned back against the wall, nursing her drink, content to watch her crewmates. She was amused to find she had grown rather fond of them, even Haoun with his hissing, growling voice.
    Mykah moved to come sit beside her and top off her glass. “I haven’t read much Templar philosophy, either,” he confided.
    Raena laughed. “I haven’t read much of any philosophy. My education is pretty thoroughly lacking.”
    That left nowhere for the conversation to go, so Raena retreated into honesty. “I think this stuff is going to my head.”
    “It’s pretty strong,” Mykah agreed. “I never tried it until I waited tables on Kai. The restaurants held a party once a week, where all the waitstaff got to sample a different liquor.”
    “That sounds like fun,” Raena said.
    “Sometimes it was. Most of the time, though, it was hard work. Some of the liquors we served were pretty noxious for humans. We had to try enough of everything that we could report to our patrons what its effects would be. Warn them away from things, if necessary.”
    “I hadn’t realized restaurant work could be so dangerous.” Raena smiled at him to show she was teasing.
    Mykah grew serious. “What do you think about this?” He waved his glass toward the screen. The liquor slopped close to the edge, but he caught it before it spilled.
    “It’s going to be bad,” Raena predicted. “Without the big freighters to haul things around the galaxy, there will be shortages. Riots. Famines.”
    “You think?”
    “I’m a pessimist.” She had another sip of the green. It was bitter at first, with sweetness underneath. “Even if things don’t get bad right away, there will be rationing and hoarding. People will be unhappy if they don’t get all they want, or if they think their neighbors are getting more.”
    Mykah nodded and filled her glass again. He was sitting closer to Raena than she preferred to let people get, unless she was fighting them. Still, she didn’t move back, for fear of insulting him.
    “Hey!” Coni snatched the bottle away from him. “Don’t drink it all, you two.”
    “Case in point,” Raena observed.
    Mykah held up one finger. “You think we ought to apply to haul food?”
    The others fell silent to listen to her. Raena nodded. “It’s not glamorous work, but it will be necessary in the short term. If the big ships can’t do it, it’s going to take a flotilla of smaller ones to get the job done. Hungry people aren’t the most patient. Or peaceable.”
    She set her glass down. “This stuff is making me see double,” she said. It was only a slight exaggeration. “I’m going to go lie down.”
    “Feel better,” Vezali wished.
    After she got back to her cabin, Raena wondered if she should have asked Mykah to make her some tea. She really didn’t want to go to sleep and face her dreams, but the disorientation brought on by the green was worse at the moment.
    She pulled the coverlet around her shoulders and sat up in the corner of the wall, head on her knees. That kept the bed from spinning.
    It didn’t keep her from dreaming.
    Raena woke sluggishly. Her wrists were pinned to a chair by heavy cuffs. Cold fluid drained through a plastic tube into the back of her right hand.