by Zieja, Joe
“Right,” Rogers said. “People trying to murder me and all that.” He remembered Keffoule specifically saying she would take care of it, so it was a little disconcerting that she was issuing him a weapon. For one, that meant she thought he could shoot, which he couldn’t. And for another thing, it meant she wasn’t totally confident that she could protect him.
Rogers gingerly picked up the disruptor pistol in its holster, placing it next to him on the bed, then looked at Xan expectantly.
“You said something about breakfast? Despite your nickname of Bellicose Thelicosa, I don’t imagine you people eat weapons for nourishment.”
“You suppose correctly,” Xan said dryly. He pressed a button on the cart and the bottom tray rotated out, replacing the tray that had contained the pistol with one that clearly smelled of various bits of deliciousness. Rogers’ hunger had punched through the minor nausea from the alcohol, and he was eager to uncover the food and dig in.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Xan said slowly. “But before I do, I must advise you, sir, that playing with the Grand Marshal’s emotions will land you, and your fleet, in much more trouble than you already are in.”
Rogers gave him a sour face. “I’m not sure how you consider refusing to marry her flat out with nearly every sentence I’ve uttered over the last two days ‘playing’ with her emotions, but I’ll keep that in mind. Can I eat now?”
Xan turned up his nose and left, finally giving Rogers some peace. His headache had already started to go away, though his body’s equilibrium still seemed to be off. He stood up and stretched a bit before digging in.
As he began to tear through slabs of thick-cut bacon, runny eggs, and some of the most delicious toast he’d ever eaten, Rogers remembered that he was supposed to be eating only with Keffoule. Considering the state she must have been in after he had quite literally drunk her under the table, perhaps she wasn’t up to another meal. Thank god for that. Dinner had been an awkward, miserable affair that he wasn’t eager to repeat.
But then again, had it really been so bad? Other than the talk about him being murdered or married against his will, it actually had been the most pleasant conversation he’d had in a long time. That and the fact that he’d ended the night with practically a whole bottle of Jasker 120 didn’t really make for a horror movie or anything. And now here he was devouring an amazing breakfast—really, something as boring as toast should not be this good—delivered straight to his bed by the same woman. Sure, she was a little scary, but, introductory face-kicking aside, she’d been treating him rather well.
He paused with a piece of bacon hanging out of his mouth. In fact, minus a couple of card games and some well-thought-out pranks, hadn’t this been exactly what he’d been searching for ever since he was forced back into the military? An easy job, a drink, and some fun, just like the old days? Maybe the location had changed a bit, and yes, yes, murder/marriage, but . . .
Rogers shook his head as he continued with his breakfast, taking a long sip of some incredible coffee. There was more to this situation than bacon and Scotch.
Right?
Well, of course, there was the Viking. Now that was a woman. Some might prefer the power and prestige of someone like Keffoule, but Rogers knew what he liked, and it was the Viking. She might not be graceful or petite, but she was right for him.
Except she’d been miserable ever since the incident with the droids had concluded. They’d argued openly at every turn, she’d hit him in the face at least once, and she’d told him his tactics were small and insignificant. Or something like that. The point was, the Viking hadn’t exactly been perfect lately either. Neither had his command. Neither had his crew. Neither had his life.
Rogers shook his head as he slurped down the runny remnants of an egg and mopped up the yolk with the last of the toast—seriously, this toast should have been illegal, it was so good. A sip of the now mostly cooled coffee let him know that he needed to take care of some personal business. Maybe that would clear his head.
It didn’t. In fact, when he finished, he felt like he’d made a crap withdrawal rather than a crap deposit. What was he really going back to if he convinced Keffoule to turn him back over to the Flagship? A lot of responsibility he hadn’t asked for, a woman who kept punching him in the face despite his best romantic intentions, and a hotshot pilot who seemed to be trying to kill him at every turn. He supposed he missed Deet a little, but in general . . . life on the Flagship kind of sucked.
No, he was thinking like a selfish, whiny child. There were higher ideals at stake here, weren’t there?
Wheeling the tray of spent breakfast items over to one side of the room, Rogers stood in the middle and went through his ducking exercises. Normally he wasn’t one for self-motivated physical activity, but for some reason he thought it would help him think straight. Mailn wasn’t exactly a personal trainer, and Rogers wasn’t exactly a fitness nut, but he could have sworn that the sessions with Mailn were doing good things for his balance and coordination.
Bobbing and weaving throughout the room, he imagined the Viking throwing punches and kicks at him, picking up furniture and using it as bludgeoning implements, but she couldn’t hit him. He floated effortlessly between her strikes, infuriating her with every graceful movement. It didn’t matter that he crashed into the breakfast tray twice.
Despite his best efforts to distract himself, he became exhausted after a few minutes, his hangover giving his body a very forceful signal to stop jumping around. His mind went back to his current situation.
Higher ideals. What higher ideals? The threat of war had been extinguished; he’d seen to that with the droids, and now he’d clarified things with Keffoule. All he needed to do now was get back on the Flagship and prevent them from doing anything stupid like attempting to counterattack.
On second thought, maybe he didn’t even need to get back on the Flagship. Really, his duty was on the Limiter right now. Once Keffoule lifted the jamming net, he could tell everyone that they’d done a great job and defended Meridan honor or some crap like that, then let them know that he was staying on the Limiter as a diplomat, or something. Admiral Klein would have known exactly what to say and he would have figured out a way to not actually have to do any work. Maybe it was time Rogers give Admiral Klein some credit.
A buzzer went off, and for a moment Rogers thought it was the datapad Keffoule had given him. When he examined it, however, it was blank. When the buzzer sounded again, he found the source; the control panel by the door was blinking, and a small screen near the panel had been turned on to reveal a woman standing outside the door.
“Captain Rogers?” a voice said. Wow, that door was thin. It was like she was standing right next to him.
“I’ll be right there.” Who could be coming to see him? Hopefully not another one of those doctors trying to inject him with something. She wasn’t wearing a lab coat or complaining about Rorschach blots, so he figured it was safe. He took a moment to clean up; his dodging around the room and bumping into the breakfast tray had caused some utensils to scatter, and his sheets were a mess.
When he opened the door, he remembered the woman. Secretary Quinn, the administrative assistant or ambassador or something like that. Civ-mil relations expert and also, apparently, pantsuit expert. Rogers was pretty sure those had gone out of style on Old Earth.
“Secretary Quinn,” Rogers said. “What can I do for you?”
Her nostrils flared, and she glanced behind him to view the room, as though expecting someone to jump out from behind Rogers.
“Am I interrupting anything?” she said tightly.
Rogers frowned. “No, why?”
Quinn still didn’t appear to be willing to look him in the eye for some reason. “I’m not a detective, Captain Rogers, but you’re sweating rather profusely. There is also your lack of pants.”
Rogers’ face rose to solar temperatures as he hurriedly jumped out of the line of sight of the door, hiding himself behind the wall near t
he control panel.
“I’m—I’m sorry!” he stammered. “I only just woke up, and, uh, I was practicing ducking.”
“What?”
“Never mind,” Rogers said. “You wouldn’t understand. Just wait a second, okay?”
He slammed the controls of the door and took a deep breath. This was not a very good way to start any kind of meeting. It only took him a few seconds to resume a state of decency, though his uniform was disheveled and didn’t smell the greatest. He wondered if Keffoule had made arrangements for clothing for him in the event that he chose to stay on the Limiter.
Rogers opened the door again and tried his best to look dignified.
“I apologize for that,” he said, rather formally. How did one speak to an ambassador? Did he really care? “It was a long night.”
Quinn made that kind of humming noise that told him she knew exactly what kind of night it had been, which meant she did not at all know what kind of night it had been. Rather than try to correct her perception, Rogers motioned for her to come inside.
“What can I do for you?” he asked. “I haven’t seen you since those crazy—hey!”
Quinn had taken two swift steps inside the door and then hurriedly used the controls to close it behind her. She walked toward Rogers so swiftly that he almost ducked, but there was nothing else about her body language to say that she was about to try to hit him. The pistol, still sitting on the bottom part of the tray, was too far out of reach for him to defend himself. And even if he’d had it in his hand, he would sooner have shot the ceiling.
“What’s the big idea?” he asked.
“I need to speak to you,” Quinn said.
“Well, either that or you want to kill me,” Rogers said. Her wide-set eyes were intense, if a bit cold. Rogers had said that as a joke, but he paused for a moment, tensing up. “You . . . don’t want to kill me, do you?”
Quinn’s mouth formed a thin line. “No, I don’t want to kill you, Captain. I said I needed to speak to you. You should pay better attention.”
“Right,” Rogers said, relaxing. “You did just say that. You’ll have to forgive me. I’m a little on edge on account of, you know, being kidnapped and all. And someone apparently has been trying to kill me, so there’s that.”
Quinn’s eyes widened a bit, but in such a way that Rogers could tell she was clearly not surprised at the fact that someone was trying to murder him. She was surprised he knew about it. Was Quinn the one trying to kill him? She had just said she wasn’t here to harm him, but who knew what these Thelicosans would say?
“How . . .” Quinn began, but then shook her head. “We need to talk.”
“You said that already. You should pay better attention.” Rogers motioned to the only other chair in the room, an austere piece of furniture that once had served as a seat for working at, presumably, a network terminal. The terminal had been removed, likely for Rogers’ occupancy.
“Thank you,” Quinn said. Rogers walked over to the chair and moved it so it was near the bed, where he sat down himself. Quinn stood by the chair and did not sit in it.
“Do you have something against sitting?” Rogers asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Never mind. What did you want to talk about?”
“We don’t have a lot of time, so I’m going to be blunt. I want to get you off this ship.”
Rogers stared at her for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I feel like I’ve just misheard you. I thought you said you wanted to help me escape.”
“That’s actually precisely what I said.”
Tapping his fingers on the side of the bed, he kept quiet, for once in his life thinking hard about what he was going to say before he said it. For some reason he found himself eying the pistol on the tray, which Quinn noticed.
“Did someone smuggle you a gun?” she asked, seemingly not at all perturbed that a live weapon was so near to someone who, for all she knew, was about to pick it up and use it on her.
“It was a gift from the Grand Marshal,” Rogers said.
Quinn’s only reaction was a double blink, which didn’t tell Rogers much about what she thought of the gift. When it became apparent that she wasn’t going to ask him any further questions, he went back to the topic at hand.
“So when you say you want to get me off this ship, I’m assuming you want to help me return to the Flagship, right?”
Quinn frowned. “Of course that’s what I mean. Why would I mean anything else?”
“Well,” Rogers said, matching her glare with his own, “given how Thelicosan women have treated me so far, I wanted to make sure you weren’t trying to marry me.”
A small sound bubbled up in Quinn’s chest that might have either been a laugh or early-onset tuberculosis. Tuberculosis had been eradicated centuries earlier, of course, but both options seemed equally likely in this buttoned-up bureaucrat.
“It will have to be kept secret, of course,” Quinn said, edging closer to the chair but still not sitting in it. “And we’ll have to move slowly. I have some ideas, but I thought I would talk with you first to see—”
“I don’t know if I want to go,” Rogers said quietly.
Quinn stared at him. “What?”
Rogers didn’t repeat himself for a moment. He sat on the bed, clutching the edge of the sheets and looking at the floor. The words had sort of jumped out of his mouth without warning, and he was now unsure whether to burst into a bout of fake laughter and try to convince Quinn it was a joke or to explore his feelings. Exploring his feelings was really scary.
The level of indecision resulted in Rogers’ bursting into real, but fake-sounding laughter that rose in pitch as he tried to stop it.
Quinn took a small step backward.
“No, no,” Rogers said, clearing his throat and wiping a tear from his eye. He’d never felt more conflicted in his life, not even when trying to decide between hanging out with the hot schoolteacher or cutting class altogether. He took a deep breath, trying to stop his stomach from doing flips. An escape route was standing right in front of him—probably the second most powerful woman on the ship was offering him freedom, freedom from a crazy Thelicosan lady who had promised never to kick him in the face again and gave him fantastic Scotch. Why did everything have to be so complicated?
“I don’t know,” Rogers said. “I have to think about it.”
“What is there to think about?” Quinn said, an edge of anger in her voice. “You’ve been complaining since you got here that you wanted to get off, and now I’m telling you I have a plan to get you there.”
“Yeah, but—”
“You’re not even a little curious as to why someone like me might be offering you a way out? You don’t even want to ask me any questions? I could be standing here right now with the most critical information the galaxy has heard in centuries, and you’re going to tell me you have to think about it because your mind is so addled from drink and . . . cavorting! . . . that you can’t see that the obvious answer is to do exactly what I tell you?”
Quinn’s voice had risen to a little bit of a fever pitch, the color blossoming in her cheeks as she spoke, and when she finally finished it was obvious that she was doing everything she could to restrain herself. For some reason, it also looked like she was taking her pulse by the vein in her wrist.
“Who says ‘cavorting’?”
The Secretary’s eyes looked like they were going to pop out of her head.
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate the offer,” Rogers said. “It’s just that . . . I don’t know. You wouldn’t understand. Have you ever done a job you didn’t want to do?”
“Every day of my life,” Quinn said, then stopped, her mouth open. Rogers got the impression that the woman hadn’t expected to give that answer. She recovered just as quickly, however, and the serene, severely anal-retentive mask was back.
“Captain Rogers,” she said quietly. “There really is something I need to tell you. T
his isn’t about you, or me, or any job that you do or don’t want to do. The War of the Musical Chairs was—”
The buzzer rang.
Rogers took his eyes from Crazy Rambling Lady #2 and turned to the video screen near the door. Someone he didn’t recognize was standing outside his room, dressed in a military uniform. It wasn’t Keffoule, though, so he was able to relax a little bit; it definitely wasn’t someone coming to try to marry him. That left someone coming to murder him, and that was alright.
“Ignore it,” Quinn said. “This is important.”
Rogers was already halfway to the door. “It’ll only take a second, and then you can start to talk to me about ancient history.”
Quinn, in the middle of starting another sentence, stopped short when Rogers opened the door to reveal a familiar face—the single-eyebrow soldier who had identified himself as Keffoule’s deputy.
“Hey,” Rogers said. “I remember you. You’re the guy who almost turned our negotiation into a bloodbath. Nice to see you again.”
The man—Zigma? Ziglia? Ziaga?—stared at Rogers with the sort of forced, dispassionate stare that Rogers had come to know and love as the look of someone trying very hard not to strangle him.
“Good afternoon, Captain Rogers,” the man said, and Rogers had to give him points for not saying anything offensive instead. Rogers glanced down at his name tag: Zergan. That was it. Commodore Zergan, Keffoule’s deputy.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Rogers said. “I’m in the middle of being continually visited by strange women while I am in differing states of undress.”
Quinn made a noise behind him that was definitely not the half-chuckle he had heard earlier. This sounded a lot more like the precursor to an aneurysm or violence. But really, what did he have to fear from a little career bureaucrat like the Secretary?
“I’m surprised you were able to stand her company for as long as it took her to get that far into your room,” Zergan said, gesturing at Quinn. Rogers couldn’t help but snicker. So what if the man had nearly killed everyone in his response team? At least he had a sense of humor. At one time or another, Rogers had been physically threatened by most of his friends. Maybe Zergan would make that list.