by Joe Zieja
“No,” Roger said.
Keffoule looked at him sideways, her mouth set in a thin line. “Are you known to frequently distribute your number to brawny policemen?” she asked.
Rogers sighed. “Are you serious right now?”
It wasn’t long before they were met by an orderly in Meridan service dress, which was entirely too formal to do any real work. He looked crisp and utterly humorless, which prompted Rogers to keep conversation to a minimum. He’d rather talk to a droid; at least droids had the excuse of being literally soulless.
Deet, however, showed no such restraint. The droid spent most of the walk making the orderly look distinctly uncomfortable as he peppered him with questions that had nothing to do with their mission on Prime.
“Can I have your network password?” Deet asked.
“No.”
“Can you tell me where the server room is?”
“No.”
“How does that make you feel?”
“No.”
Keffoule leaned over to Rogers and whispered. “Is this some sort of Meridan communication ritual?”
“What is it with you thinking that everything is a ritual?” Rogers asked. He remembered Keffoule wondering some other such nonsense when they’d sat down to dinner together. “Deet is just being an asshole.”
“I am not being an [ANATOMICAL REFERENCE],” Deet said. “I am gathering intelligence.”
“You people have no principles,” Keffoule muttered.
The orderly, pointedly moving to the other side of their group to avoid Deet’s questions, led them down a hallway and up to a pair of large doors. A bronze plaque on the outside indicated that the office was the home of High Admiral Jacob R. Holdt, Meridan naval representative to the Meridan Staff of Joint Representative Chiefs, which was possibly the worst title Rogers had ever heard of other than maybe Quinn’s.
“Here you are, sir,” the orderly said stiffly. “Admiral Holdt is expecting you.”
Reaching out, he opened the door with both handles at once, which Rogers thought was a little melodramatic even with all the war and stuff going on. The two enormous doors swung outward to reveal what Rogers thought was going to be an immaculately kept office, complete with high-technology communication, a wet bar, and maybe a butler holding a silver tray of small sandwiches. Instead, the first thing Rogers noticed was the smell.
“There’s something familiar about this place,” Tunger said, confirming Rogers’ suspicions that yes, Holdt’s office did indeed smell like a zoo.
It looked like one too. All over the place were signs that Holdt’s office had been turned into something akin to a military commune, except there was only one resident, if you didn’t count the chicken. There was always a chicken. The whole room exuded stress like an accordion being slowly compressed by a clown who hated you. Datapads littered the room, all of the six vidscreens displayed differing streams of news, and a cot had been made up in the corner out of couch cushions and throw blankets.
Holdt himself looked much grayer and thinner than Rogers remembered him from their conversation only a few days earlier. He sat in a large leather chair behind his desk, his head tilted back so far over the headrest that Rogers couldn’t tell if he was sleeping or simply staring at the ceiling. His uniform was ruffled to the point where there were more ruffles than flourishes, and an open bottle of cheap whiskey sat half-empty on the desk.
So this was war.
“Well, shit, Rogers,” Holdt said, apparently not asleep.
“I like him,” Deet said.
To his recollection, Rogers had never been in front of such a high-ranking officer in all of his days in the military. Having been assigned to the Flagship as a new recruit all the way up to sergeant, and then again as a new lieutenant all the way up to out-of-his-fucking-mind, he’d thankfully never had very much experience with staff. Klein had been an admiral too, Rogers admitted, but not a real admiral. He’d just been a Toastmasters graduate extremely good at masking the fact that he was an idiot.
So . . . maybe a real admiral.
As a result, Rogers didn’t really know what to do. He sort of, kind of stood at attention, which resulted in him bringing his heels together just a little more than was normal and leaving his hands at his sides in a way that felt, and probably looked, very awkward.
“That looks very awkward,” Deet said, looking at Rogers.
“Shut up, Deet,” Rogers said.
Tunger, however, seemed to have no reservations about acting like a complete tool. His whole body went ramrod straight, his chin tucked so far into his chest that it looked like he was attempting to sniff his sternum.
“Good morning, sir,” Tunger yelled, bringing Admiral Holdt’s head back from its reclined position with a snap.
“Jesus’ steaming turd, Corporal,” Holdt said with only one eye open. “Is that really necessary?”
The admiral’s face looked even worse now that Rogers could get a full view of it. His eyes were bloodshot, sunken, like someone who had been drinking heavily for a long period of time. Although his gaze was glazed over like a sloppily made donut, Rogers didn’t think he was drunk, or even hungover.
Keffoule gazed around the room, her nose wrinkled and her posture relaxed. Rogers knew better than to believe that; the more languid that woman became, the closer she was to dancing through a hail of bullets.
“I didn’t expect Meridans to have much love for military protocol,” she muttered. She didn’t exactly look ready to jump to attention either, even though her rank equivalency was below that of Holdt’s.
The Meridan high admiral spared little notice for Keffoule and her saggy-cheeked attendant. He waved away Tunger’s rising salute and poured himself a glass of whiskey. It was ten in the morning.
“I’ve gotten through some of the reports your staff sent,” he said.
“I have a staff?” Rogers asked.
“You did ask S1C Brelle to prepare a package for you to send once the Thelicosan jamming net was down,” Deet said. “I took the liberty to fill in some additional details.”
Rogers frowned, looking at Deet. “Deet,” he said. “That was . . .”
Deet turned his horse-like face to look at Rogers, his glowing blue eyes flickering.
“[EXPLETIVE]?” he offered.
“No,” Rogers said. “It was actually, genuinely thoughtful.”
Deet nodded his head as though he’d confirmed some point.
“Anyway,” Holdt said. “I have the gist of what’s going on.” He leaned forward in his chair, letting a long breath go and putting his elbows on his desk. His uniform shirt looked slightly yellowed under the arms. Even if Holdt was spending his nights here doing war planning or whatever, there had to at least be a shower or something in the headquarters building, right?
“So you’re telling me,” Holdt continued, “that you basically threw out every rule and regulation regarding conducting warfare, then also threw out all semblances of military doctrine and strategy and just did whatever the fuck you wanted, however the fuck you wanted to do it?”
Rogers froze. He’d gotten ass chewings before. He’d developed a sort of sixth sense to understand when he was walking into one so he could steel himself before he got there. His ass-chewing senses had not been tingling prior to this meeting, so it was surprising how much this felt like a good old-fashioned chewing of one’s ass.
“I—uh,” he stammered.
“Captain Rogers’ ability to improvise was instrumental in securing my fleet back from the traitor Edris Zergan,” Keffoule cut in, her voice like a whip.
“I wasn’t criticizing,” Holdt said, giving Keffoule a sour face. Despite his insistence that Rogers bring the Thelicosan commander along, he didn’t seem very happy to have her in his office. “I was just confirming that is what actually happened. Rogers, you might have unlocked the key to all of this.”
Shit, Rogers thought. Now, instead of an ass chewing, this was starting to sound like a commendation. That was e
ven worse. With an ass chewing, you left appropriately downcast and then you went back to whatever you’d been doing. With a commendation, someone typically gave you more work to do.
Holdt swiveled around in his chair and stood up, some of the vigor suddenly back in his bones. Clasping his hands behind his back in a very admiral-like way, Holdt stood and looked out the window into the expanse of government jungle that extended to the visible horizon. A pair of fighters zoomed overhead, this time avoiding any misplaced space debris.
“We’re a mess,” Holdt said finally. “A real goddamn mess. And we don’t have a way to get out of it. The Jupiterians are blockading just about every Un-Space point across all of the systems. I can’t imagine the hardware they’d need to do something like that, but apparently they have it. New Neptune and Grandelle are already completely under their control.”
Rogers’ breath caught in his chest at that. Two of the four systems, completely in Jupiterian control?
“How is that even possible?” he asked.
“Well, Grandelle is where Snaggardir’s is based, more or less. Their main headquarters is actually a space station, but most of their planetside resources are scattered throughout that system. They hold so much sway economically within that system that they were simply able to buy their way into power. Anyone who didn’t immediately capitulate had most of their assets frozen and faced instant ruin.”
Rogers shook his head. A buyout on a massive, system-wide scale.
“And New Neptune?” Keffoule asked.
“They put it in the news that the Jupiterians were in charge, and everyone kind of just went with it.”
Swiveling his head around to find Xan, Rogers raised an eyebrow. Such a ridiculous explanation couldn’t possibly be—
“That sounds reasonable,” Xan said, nodding slowly.
“How the hell is that reasonable?” Rogers asked.
“I can answer that,” Tunger said. “I’m a bit of a cultural expert.”
Rogers looked at him. “No, you are not.”
“He saved your life three times on a Thelicosan ship without getting caught,” Deet offered.
Rogers grit his teeth. “Thank you, Deet.”
“Why the [EXPLETIVE] are you thanking me? You should be thanking Corporal Tunger.”
Tunger shrugged all of this off. “It was nothing, sir. Just doing my job. But New Neptune is notoriously known for ‘going with the flow,’ if I can use the expression. Most of the immigrants who settled in the New Neptune system came from old communist countries. In general, if the news told them that they’d be under the control of a band full of monkeys, they’d shrug, move on, and go make borscht.”
Rogers blinked. “I’m not trying to be judgmental here, but that sounds like the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I’ll thank you not to insult my people,” Xan said, perhaps a hint of tension in his voice. “It is our way.”
“What if I were to put in the news that you were all stupid?”
Xan gave him a blank stare. Rogers liked to think that the small robotic circuits inside Xan’s brain were slowly starting to smoke.
“Perhaps we should return to the task at hand,” Keffoule said, gesturing grandly at the entire room for some reason. It gave Rogers the impression that what she really wanted to do was clean this place up. She hadn’t unwrinkled her nose since she’d come inside Holdt’s office.
“Cultural barriers not withstanding,” Holdt said, turning around and addressing them all directly, “we need some way to take that strategy and adapt it to all of the anti-Jupiterian forces. If we can’t bring everyone here to coordinate a resistance, it’s going to be tough for everyone. I’m able to get messages out to some parts of each system, but I don’t know who is getting what.” He sighed. “The Meridan International Representative Party has appointed me director of the war effort, and our first task is to restore freedom of movement through the Un-Space points. If Jupiter keeps us separate, they keep us weak.”
The final statement echoed through the room. In truth, the Jupiterians had been kept separate for two hundred years, and it hadn’t seemed to affect their ability to overthrow the galaxy very much. Then again, Rogers considered, they hadn’t won yet. They’d taken everyone by surprise, but fifty percent of the galaxy wasn’t all of the galaxy.
“What do the Jupiterians want?” Rogers asked. “Do we have any idea?”
“That’s half the frustration,” Holdt said. “We have no idea. The initial strikes seemed to indicate that it was going to be a war of attrition, but now it looks as though they’ve stopped. You don’t blockade Un-Space points if you’re just going to try and wipe everyone out. But they haven’t made any demands; Snaggardir’s main offices have been quiet.”
Rogers shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
Over on the far side of the office, closer to where they’d entered, a long table held a coffee machine and some mugs. Rogers had enough tact to not go for the bottle of whiskey just yet—besides, it was cheap whiskey—but he certainly wasn’t above going and grabbing a cup of coffee.
“Why go through all the trouble if you’re not going to do anything with the territory you grab?” Rogers took a cup and put it under the spout.
“Wait!” Holdt said.
“I’m not leaving,” Rogers said. “I’m just getting a—”
Rogers was hit in the face with a blast of molten death, spewing from the innards of the large black coffee machine on the table. His ducking instincts kicked in, but it was too late; a veritable shower of coffee fountained all over the place, staining the floor, Rogers’ uniform, and his pride.
“What the hell was that?” Rogers asked, spitting out scalding-hot coffee. It felt like half his face was melting off. The coffee wasn’t even that good. The small amount of it that had made it into his mouth tasted like sulfur and cotton swabs.
“I tried to warn you,” Holdt said, throwing him a towel that was already full of coffee stains. Rogers apparently wasn’t the first to be ambushed by the technology.
In response, Rogers coughed up a small black thunderstorm.
“Look at the label,” Holdt said, gesturing at the coffee machine. “It was made by Snaggardir’s. Half the stuff in the galaxy was made by that damn company, and all of it has started to malfunction.” Holdt sat back down, pouring himself another glass of whiskey. When had he finished the last one? “I’d say it was deliberate sabotage, but it doesn’t make any sense. Nothing that is malfunctioning is of any real use.”
What kind of barbarian describes coffee as not having any real use? Rogers thought.
“Well why the hell don’t you just unplug it?” Rogers asked.
“We can’t. The plugs were outfitted with claw-like teeth that have attached themselves to the inside of the wall. Forcing them out or cutting the cords could cause a short, and we’d be out of power.”
Holdt threw back half a glass of whiskey and let out a very un-admiral-like belch.
“Look, let me cut to the chase. We can’t reteach all the militaries in all the systems how to fight. You’re going to need to go out there and recruit people who already don’t know how to fight.”
Rogers finished wiping his face on the towel and threw it back to Holdt.
“As for you,” Holdt said, pointing to Keffoule. “I’ve managed to get word from the Thelicosan Council. The Colliders are going to be absorbed as a unit within the 331st. You’ll be operating under Captain Rogers now.”
“Oh I’d like to operate underneath—”
“Stop,” Rogers said. “Stop.”
He was a fool to think that he was going to be extricated from dealings with Keffoule, as much as he desperately wanted to be. Their fates were intertwined, or some fatalist, destiny-spewing bullshit like that. At this point, they might as well be married, because it seemed only death would part them.
“Do you have any idea how we’re supposed to go about getting a bunch of idiots who don’t play by the rules to come figh
t?”
For the first time, Rogers had noticed that Deet was no longer with the rest of the group. He’d slowly been making his way around the room, looking at various things with a childlike curiosity that Rogers had kind of come to find endearing, if such a word could ever be used to describe his feelings toward Deet. Rogers realized this was his first trip to an actual planet; if he’d been built by Snaggardir’s, there was a good chance he’d been manufactured in space.
Holdt leaned back in his chair, giving Rogers a level, flat look.
“I hear you might know a pirate or two.”
Rogers swallowed. “Wow, that’s, uh, kind of a jump in logic, eh?”
“Stow it, Rogers,” Holdt said. “We’re not all morons in this navy. You’re absolved of all the stupid crap you did with the pirates. Now I want you to go out there and get them to fight for us.”
“Pirates?” Keffoule said, looking like she was going to spit. “We don’t need their ilk working with us.”
“Something against space corsairs?” Rogers asked. “Seems kind of picky.”
Keffoule sneered at him, back to business. She’d been so coy this entire time that it was almost weird to see her looking more like a warrior than an unwanted suitor.
“We’re not looking for opinions on this,” Holdt said. “You don’t have to go, Grand Marshal. Rogers is the one with the connections.”
“Admiral,” Rogers said, “for all they know, I was responsible for blowing all of them up. That doesn’t exactly make for a warm welcome. They might shoot me on sight.”
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” Holdt said.
“Thanks.”
Deet made a sound that was suspiciously laughter-like. He was over by Holdt’s desk now, so Rogers couldn’t see the bottom half of his body. If Holdt had any reservations about having a semi-sentient droid standing awkwardly close to him, he didn’t show it.
“Anyway,” Holdt said. “You have your orders. Report back once you have an indication of whether or not they’re willing to help.”
“Hang on a damn minute,” Rogers said. “What am I supposed to offer them? They’re pirates, Admiral, they don’t operate on goodwill.”