"Be with you in a minute, Caine," Lepkowski said, eyes on something tracking across his display.
Nodding silently, Caine took the chair beside the desk, from which the screen was out of view.
Whatever Lepkowski was working on, it was probably none of Caine's immediate business... and both Lathe and Lepkowski were very big on the compartmentalization of secrets. If you didn't need to know, you weren't told. And you didn't ask twice.
A minute later the older man sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Damn them all back to hell," he muttered.
"Trouble?" Caine asked.
"Yes, but so far only at the annoyance level." Lepkowski gestured at his screen. "The Karachi's last intelligence sweep through the TDE indicates the war front with the Chryselli has shifted again, and the damn Ryqril convoy routes have changed accordingly. Means we're going to have to detour around Navarre and maybe New Morocco if we don't want to run into anything big."
Caine grimaced. The huge Ryqril war machine which had overrun the TDE thirty years earlier was currently locked in combat with the Chryselli Homelands, and the legged furballs were giving the Ryqril a distinct run for their money. It was the only reason Lepkowski's three Novas were being allowed to wander around loose, in fact—the Ryqril simply couldn't afford the front-line ships and time it would take to chase them down. But that didn't mean a ship that just happened to bump into one of the Novas wouldn't take a shot at it. "You going to have any trouble hitting Earth?"