System Failure

by Joe Zieja

  “Look, Deet,” Rogers said. “Nacho cheese aside, this is all at least somewhat valuable information, but it doesn’t excuse you shirking your duties and hanging everyone on the bridge out to dry.”

  Deet beeped. “The humidity level on this ship is very stringently controlled by automated systems.”

  “Expression,” Rogers said. “There are many for screwing over your teammates. The bottom line is that you let me and everyone here down. I know you want to find out more about where you came from and why you’re the way you are—and I told you I’d let you do it—but we have to take care of the potential crumbling of society as we know it first, okay?”

  Deet didn’t answer, and Rogers turned away from him to look out the window. So this was what war was like. The battle with Zergan’s stolen fleet had been dangerous, but not very deadly. Circumstances had forced Zergan to go off half-cocked, and it made for a relatively bloodless victory for the 331st. This, however . . . this was a prolonged, pitched battle between two large space forces that had resulted in a nontrivial amount of space debris being created. Rogers fondly remembered the days—not very long ago—when being in the military had just meant your drinking was government funded. Now he was going to have to write letters home to families with one less member. Or at least he was going to have to tell someone else to write letters.

  It would be wrong to simply not tell people, right?

  His eyes drifted over to the Viking, who gave cleanup assignments to her marines and hurried them off the bridge. Sergeant Mailn busied herself next to her, looking worried and distracted. Not a typical expression for the young marine at all. The Viking seemed to sense that and put a hand on her shoulder, leaning close to mutter something Rogers couldn’t hear. Mailn took a deep breath and nodded.

  “I made a mistake too,” Rogers said, loud enough that he was sure the Viking could hear. “I was wrong to take care of personal business during a battle.” He dropped his volume again and grumbled to Deet. “I mean, the only reason anyone found out about me shirking my duties is because you were shirking yours.” Rogers grew louder again. “I solemnly vow to embrace my position as commander of this fleet in the coming trials.”

  Someone in the far corner of the room gave him a long, slow salute. Most people ignored him. The Viking gave him a considering look, as if she was trying to figure out if he was genuine. In truth, Rogers thought he was. But looking at that face, that big, beautiful, perfectly-shaped-for-head-butting face, he saw a reason to be good at his job. The better he could do in this chair, the less likely the Viking would come into harm’s way.

  There were probably other things he could do to keep her from dying too. Rogers thought for a moment. Back when he was still a lieutenant, which was practically yesterday, he’d been Klein’s executive assistant. Supposedly for officers, that was a stepping stone in one’s career, a box one had to check in order to be eligible for promotion to the higher ranks. Wouldn’t it make sense, then, to pull the Viking off combat duty and offer her the position of exec? Then Deet could focus on deputy duties, Rogers would be near the Viking all day, the Viking would get bonus points on her résumé, and she would get shot at much less!

  Wow, Rogers really felt like he was thinking like a fleet commander now. He wasn’t totally sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

  “Sir,” Commander Belgrave said, looking at some displays at his station. “We’ll be exiting Un-Space in just a few minutes.”

  “Right,” Rogers said. “Starman Brelle, prep a channel with HQ and see if you can get Holdt on the line.”

  “On it, Skipper.”

  Rogers turned to Deet. “Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you, Deet? You need to have some patience.”

  Deet stared at Rogers for what seemed like a long time.

  “How do you feel, Rogers?”

  Rogers shut his eyes. “Don’t empath me right now, okay? And that’s really not the way you do it.”

  “Of course it is,” Belgrave said. “Deet, come here. Let’s go over Epicurus’ agreement with evil.”

  “I’m also pretty sure that’s not what that’s called, either.”

  The droid-helmsman pair went off on their own tangents, which both bored and confused Rogers. Mailn and the Viking finished whatever conversation they were having, and Sergeant Mailn looked like it cost her actual, physical effort to shake off whatever was on her mind and resume her constant shit-eating grin. The Viking clapped her on the back, which made Rogers extremely jealous, and Mailn headed toward the bridge exit.

  “Sergeant Mailn,” Rogers said. “A moment, please.”

  Mailn smoothly pivoted and started walking to the command platform, one eyebrow raised.

  “Really?” she said. “ ‘A moment, please?’ Since when do you say stuff like that?”

  “I’m trying to build an image,” Rogers said.

  “Oh? Instead of an escape pod?”

  “Come on,” Rogers said, turning a little red. “That was like . . . two major dramatic events ago. Let’s let that one go, shall we?”

  “Not if you don’t stop saying stuff like ‘a moment, please.’ Shall I get you a monocle to wear?”

  “Get your ass over here!” he barked.

  Mailn nodded. “That’s more like it.”

  “I find it difficult both to discern how one would only put one’s ass in a location, and what your plans would be for that specific part of human anatomy if they were to succeed,” Deet chimed in.

  Rogers was just going to let Belgrave handle that one.

  “You okay?” Rogers said to Mailn. She flinched at the question.

  “I’m fine,” Mailn said.

  “Great,” Rogers said. “I didn’t really care, I just wanted to check that box. My date went badly.”

  Mailn folded her arms. “Oh really? Why do you think that is?”

  “Oh don’t get Socratic,” Rogers said. “I hate Socrates. I don’t need a lecture on the obvious.”

  “I am pretty sure you do,” Mailn said, “since you seem to repeat mistakes so often. But what do you need a moment for?”

  “I’m thinking about pulling the Viking from combat duty and making her my exec.”

  Mailn looked at him for a second, her mouth slightly open and her eyes squinted. Then she let go a whooping laugh so loud that it caused heads on the bridge to turn and caused Rogers to recoil in his chair. Her face turned red, and tears started streaming down her eyes. At one point she did that motion with her hand that indicated she was having trouble breathing. She continued laughing to the point where she was making long, silent, sob-like motions with her shoulders and leaning over the railing of the command platform. Then she simply walked away, stumbling with drunken laughter all the way to the exit.

  “Keep that a secret, will you?” Rogers called after her. “I want it to be a surprise.”

  “Trust me,” she said, out of breath. “I wouldn’t dare to say a thing.” The door closed behind her.

  Rogers felt extremely unsettled by that moment, like something was sitting in the pit of his stomach and trying to crawl its way out.

  “She needed that,” the Viking said.

  Rogers looked back to find the Viking holding a few stray datapads and clearly preparing to go back down with the rest of her marines.

  “Oh,” Rogers said. “Hi. What do you mean?”

  The Viking, whose expression had softened to the point where she actually looked like she wanted to be in the same room as him, indicated toward the door with a nod of her head.

  “Mailn. I don’t know what you said to her, but I haven’t heard her laugh like that in weeks. Especially not with a visit to Merida Prime coming up. Thanks, Rogers.”

  “You’re welcome?” Rogers said, really not sure what was going on anymore. He had no idea what anyone on this ship was thinking when they were talking to him. Maybe he needed a lesson in empathy from Belgrave.

  “You see,” Belgrave was saying, “the salute actually originated as a way
for knights to greet each other. Since they wore visors, their noses were often itchy, but the inflexibility of the armor made it difficult to reach inside one’s own visor. They’d lift their own visor, and another trusted knight would reach in to scratch their nose for them. That lifting motion became the salute.”

  Maybe Rogers didn’t need a lesson in anything from Belgrave.

  “Rogers,” the Viking said. “I’m willing to give you another chance, okay? You kind of saved the day up here, even though you were being a little shit earlier. Maybe let’s wait a bit, though.”

  “Yeah,” Rogers said, swallowing. “I was being a little shit. Sorry.”

  The Viking shrugged. “Everyone has their moments.” She grinned. “You just seem to have more than most. Let me know when you need a door kicked down.”

  She waved a fistful of datapads at him and left the bridge. Rogers was pretty sure he could think of at least one door he would like her to kick down right now, and it rhymed with “my stateroom.” He supposed she was right, though. Maybe there wasn’t time for all of that just yet.

  “All hands, prepare for Un-Space exit,” came the call over the speaker system. “Ten seconds.”

  There really wasn’t a whole lot of preparation for the exit from Un-Space. You just suddenly became aware of physics again. Not that it didn’t exist while you were traveling through the wormholes; you just sort of forgot that you existed in a physical space. When exiting back into standard space, many people had a crushing sense of self that momentarily caused them to do silly things like buy expensive cars and get tattoos. Rogers had done it plenty of times since he’d separated from the military as a sergeant, so he was used to it, but it had been a long time since the 331st had traveled through Un-Space as a unit.

  “Three, two—Jesus, why didn’t I hug my mom more? Um . . . sorry.” The speaker abruptly clicked off.

  “I am made of metal!” Deet cried. “I am completely made out of metal!”

  Rogers squinted, looking at Deet. This may have actually been Deet’s first trip through Un-Space, but . . .

  “Uh, you’re a robot,” Rogers said. “You shouldn’t have the kind of awareness that makes you do stuff like that after an Un-Space crawl.”

  “It’s my fault,” Belgrave said. “I insisted he was made out of rainbows, like everyone in our peaceful world. He was just arguing with me.”

  Rogers was about to reply, but he was distracted by something outside the window. Lots of somethings. They had come out of Un-Space at the very edge of the Merida Prime orbit, close enough to have the blue-green planet take up most of the viewing space. How long had it been since he’d been close to solid ground? Hell, how long had it been since he’d been this close to Prime? A lot of memories were buried underneath that atmosphere.

  He swallowed, realizing it was probably the effects of Un-Space causing him to be so introspective, and allowed himself to be distracted by all of the other things going on around Prime. Namely, the gigantic presence of ships, stations, and small craft flying all over the place. Huge cruisers, battleships, flagships, fighters, cargo tugs—every type and class of ship imaginable were scattered around the planet, either parked in geostationary orbit or using thrusters to maintain their position. Everything looked both meticulously organized and hopelessly chaotic.

  “Holy shit,” Rogers whispered. This was what a galaxy at war looked like. Most of the ships present were Meridan, which made sense, but he saw a lot of spacecraft that he didn’t recognize. Thelicosan ships were easier to spot, since he’d been working with them/trying not to be slaughtered by them for a while now. He thought he recognized a pleasure cruiser from Grandelle, which seemed a little unnecessary, but just about everything the Grandellians did was . . . well, grand.

  Everyone on the bridge seemed to echo his sentiment, staring out the window with similar facial and verbal reactions.

  “It’s like an [EXPLETIVE] carnival arrived, except it’s ready to kill everyone,” Deet said.

  “We’re being hailed, sir,” Brelle said.

  “Well, hopefully they’re not ready to kill us,” Rogers said. At this point, with Jupiterians all over the place, a fleet of any size popping into existence nearby would be enough to spook anyone. “Bring it online—”

  Before Rogers could finish his sentence, a shuddering blast shook the ship. He heard the shields crackle, and bright green flashes turned everything on the bridge into dim, verdant reflective surfaces. Noises of surprise popped up all around him.

  “You are to stay in your present position until authorized to move forward,” came a sharp male voice over the radio. “Power down your engines and prepare to be identified.”

  A pair of Meridan fighters—Ravagers—swooped by the bridge, so close that he could actually see the cores of their engines as they made a sharp turn to avoid flying into his command chair.

  “How about you add a ‘sir’ to the end of that threat, flyboy?” Rogers barked back over the radio. “This is Captain Rogers, commander of the 331st. Admiral Holdt is expecting us.”

  Wow, he’d never really said that out loud before. It sounded so . . . official. So powerful. He might have gotten goose bumps. He might have even heard a French horn playing a dramatic line somewhere in the background as he made the announcement.

  No, that was Tunger.

  “Tunger, not now, please,” Rogers said. “I’m also somewhat baffled that you know how to play French horn.”

  “I know quite a lot of things, old chap,” Tunger said. “I mean, sir.”

  “We are verifying all identities before they are allowed into the group,” the fighter pilot said. “Stand by—sir.”

  “That’s better,” Rogers said.

  A tension settled on Rogers and worked its way through his jaw and face. Warning shots being fired across the bow of a friendly ship, people actually patrolling around Merida Prime . . . this wasn’t the galaxy he’d grown up in. What he should have been doing right now was turning on the beer light and kicking back to play some cards or just bullshit other troops with self-inflating stories that may or may not have ever happened. This military was way too serious.

  Another shot crackled the shields.

  “Hey!” Rogers yelled over the radio. “We’re just sitting here waiting like you told us to.” He shot a glance at Belgrave. “That is what we’re doing, isn’t it?”

  Belgrave gave him a nod, gesturing at the controls he wasn’t touching and almost never actually touched.

  The voice of the fighter pilot came back over the radio, but he clearly wasn’t talking to Rogers.

  “You idiot, I already did the warning-shot thing!” he said.

  “You always get to do the warning-shot thing,” a second, thinner voice said—probably belonging to the second Ravager. “Besides, you didn’t tell them to cease and desist and wait to be recognized and all that.”

  “I totally did! You weren’t listening. You never listen.”

  “Oh, now I never listen. Here we go.”

  Okay, so maybe this military wasn’t serious enough.

  “Please stop shooting my ship,” Rogers said.

  “Sorry,” said the second fighter pilot.

  “Thank you for apologizing,” said the first fighter pilot, perhaps a bit primly.

  “I wasn’t saying sorry to you.” The transmission cut off.

  Rogers was in the middle of deciding whether he’d prefer that pair of Ravager pilots over Flash when Admiral Holdt finally came on the radio.

  “Rogers!” he said. “Took you long enough.”

  “We were kind of busy fighting our way through a blockade, sir,” Rogers said flatly.

  “You broke through one of the blockades?” Holdt said. “Damn. We have forces holed up all over the galaxy that can’t get back to Prime because of those. I want a full debrief when you get planetside.”

  “You want me to dock?”

  “No, I want you to bring your command crew here to HQ so we can strategize. Park the 331st somewhere
and take a shuttle.”

  “That’s fine,” Rogers said, “but I brought some backup as well. The Colliders are here with me. Well, any ships that didn’t defect to the Jupiterians, anyway.”

  “Good,” Holdt said. “Park them with the 331st and bring their commander too.”

  Rogers felt a sinking in his stomach. He really wished he hadn’t said anything.

  “Do I have to?” he said, not at all whining even a little bit.

  “Yes,” Holdt said. “Holdt, out.” The transmission clicked off.

  “Aw, man,” Rogers said.

  “What is it?” Deet asked.

  Rogers sighed and settled back in his chair. “Nothing. Starman Brelle, send a hail to Grand Marshal Keffoule. Please tell her she needs to come to our ship for purposes that expressly have nothing to do with marriage.”

  Keffoule’s Errand

  Alandra Keffoule let a sly smile slip across her face. He had gone out of his way to mention marriage again. It really could only mean one thing: he was over that grumpy, muscle-wrapped marine and was planning a romantic rendezvous on Merida Prime, the place of his birth. She would meet his family, make gracious small talk over dinner. Say “grace” instead of “Graze” before eating. Whatever it took to adapt to Meridan customs, Keffoule would consider. Previously this had been all about integrating Captain Rogers into her own Thelicosan family, but now that things in the galaxy were so . . . uncertain, perhaps she could compromise on a few things.

  Brushing her dark, tangled hair out of her face, Alandra took a deep breath and looked out at the chaotic mess of ships. She’d never been this close to Merida Prime before. Many of her more covert engagements had taken her to Meridan space, but nothing this close to the center and certainly nothing this close to all of these ships.

  The bridge of the Limiter ran smoothly and quietly, the silent efficiency of the highly trained Thelicosan Navy hard at work. The only person making any real noise was Leftennant Faraz, whose face still looked a little black and blue. He repeatedly yelled “What?” at anyone who was—or appeared to be—talking to him. Alandra gave him a little more leeway than she would other troops. After all, she had kicked him in the face. Twice.