by Joe Zieja
“ALL MY ORDERS COME IN ELECTRONICALLY,” Ralph said/screamed. “I’VE BEEN VERY BUSY.”
“I can tell,” Rogers said. “I really admire your art. Where do you get your inspiration?”
Who makes you spout this garbage? Rogers wanted to ask.
“ART ISN’T ABOUT INSPIRATION,” Ralph said. “IT’S ABOUT RECEIVING SPECFIC AND ORDERLY INSTRUCTIONS AND THEN PUTTING THEM IN A COMPUTER.”
Rogers slowly shook his head. “That’s so completely wrong, I don’t even know how to argue. So, you don’t know who submits the orders?”
“NO. IN FACT, I HAVEN’T GOTTEN ANY NEW ORDERS IN A LONG TIME. I’M STILL WORKING ON THE ORDER I GOT EIGHT MONTHS AGO.”
Rogers’ head was starting to hurt. The shouting would have been tolerable had the room not been so unbelievably small. He rubbed the sides of his temples.
“One order, eight months ago? Is that the order for all the posters that have gone up lately?” Rogers asked. He realized his own voice was getting louder.
“YES.” Ralph banged away at the keyboard, and Rogers stepped behind him to look on the screen. A very simple graphical editing program was up, and Ralph was dragging around pieces of stock art and putting them together. He had an awful lot of pictures of ships, cannon fire, droids, and a surprisingly large database of really useless things like flowers and striped candies.
“Do you print them here?”
“NO.”
Well, that meant that whoever was putting the listening devices in them—they must have been exceedingly small—was either in the printing room or the framing room. Rogers was sure he could find out more if he visited wherever that location was.
“Who prints them?”
“I DON’T KNOW.”
Rogers sighed. Of course Ralph didn’t know. Gosh, he was typing fast. Rogers looked down at the keyboard and noticed that most of the letters on the keyboard were worn away from overuse except the one for that squiggly thing that nobody knew what the hell it was for.
Well, if he couldn’t solve the problem of the listening devices here, maybe he could just solve the problem of the ubiquitous, tacky posters. They really were annoying, and Rogers had a feeling they were having an opposite effect on ship morale. He wasn’t going to revitalize the 331st with all that crap on the walls.
“What if I told you I wanted a high-priority order to interrupt the one you were working on?” Rogers asked. “You might not know this, but the stuff you’re kicking out now is kind of making people lose their minds.” He remembered his old friend Hart spouting off the strange rhetoric in the kitchen, and how it had made Rogers feel like he had an army of spiders crawling around in his underwear.
“NO CAN DO.” Ralph said/screamed, his voice cracking. How did he even have vocal cords left? “ALL ORDERS HAVE TO BE COMPLETED BEFORE MOVING ON TO THE NEXT ORDER.”
Rogers sighed. “Could you at least not type them in all caps?”
“I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT.”
“Right,” Rogers said. “Of course.” He pulled on his beard, thinking. Snapping the Flagship out of whatever craziness had hold of it would be a little more effective if he didn’t have information ops working against him. Who had made that order, anyway? Perhaps he could get into the system later, right after he figured out where they were printed and framed.
“HEY,” Ralph said. “WHAT RHYMES WITH OBEY?”
Rogers stopped pacing around the room and stepped behind the computer again. On the screen was a very dark, mysterious shadow of a silhouetted face, under which was currently written WHEN YOU OBEY . . .
“I don’t know,” Rogers said. “Okay? Play? Delay?”
“THANKS.”
Ralph finished typing so the phrase read WHEN YOU OBEY . . . THINGS ARE GOOD.
Rogers opened his mouth to argue, then recalled some metaphor about pissing into a stern wind. He thought it might have gone something like “WHEN YOU URINATE INTO A BREEZE, IT COMES BACK AND HITS YOU IN THE FACE, AND THAT’S BAD.”
While rolling his eyes so hard, he thought they might fall out, Rogers noticed a tall metallic cylinder in the corner of the room with a small red light on it. It took him a moment, but he recognized it as an old coffee maker, which made sense, since he didn’t get the impression that Ralph left this room very often. Where did he go to the bathroom or shower? Rogers sniffed the air. Did he shower?
“So, you get to make your own coffee, eh?” Rogers said amicably, sidling over to where the large cylinder was mounted to the wall.
“NOT JUST COFFEE,” Ralph said. “COFFEE AND PULVERIZED SEWER RATS. KEEPS ME WORKING LONGER.”
Rogers nodded slowly. “Right. Say, have you ever heard of zip jack?”
“NO. IS HE AN ASTEROID RACER?”
“Yep,” Rogers said as he closed the lid of the coffee-Sewer-Rat-amalgamator, which was possibly the single most disgusting thing he’d ever heard of in his entire life. “The fastest asteroid racer in the galaxy. He’ll take you right over the moon if you let him.”
“WHICH MOON?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Rogers said. “It was great meeting you, Ralph. Keep up the good work.”
Report: C-7FG-2923-X
Serial: C-7FG-2923-X
Distribution: DBS//DSS//DAK//DFR//BB//CLOSED NETWORK A66
Classification: Special Protocol Required
Summary: List of personnel transfers enacted by Human 2552 and Human 2301.
Details: A number of personnel transfers have been enacted in the last two standard days. While the signatory of the orders appears to be Human 2301, information received through surveillance has revealed that Human 2301 is being directly influenced and possibly manipulated by Human 2552, whom we previously assessed as being of minimal cognitive capacity.
Details: A list of the personnel transfers is reproduced below.
Human 8853 (McSchmidt) has been transferred to intelligence.
Human 0609 (Munkle) has been transferred to public transportation.
Human 9994 (Tunger) has been transferred to the zoo deck.
Human 2002 (Hart) has been transferred to engineering.
Human 1050 (Suresh) has been transferred to the zoo deck.
Human 5665 (Stract) has been transferred to sanitation services, demoted to starman second class, and has had his clipboard confiscated.
Assessment: Human 2552 must be kept under careful observation.
Report Submitted By: F-GC-001
Big Red Data
The briefing screen was swathed in red. Red all over the place. The whole room was utterly silent; even Klein had stopped drafting a pep talk to stare at the screen that appeared to be bleeding Thelicosan ships.
“Much better with color,” Klein said agreeably, nodding his head before going back to writing.
What only yesterday had been a benign formation of Thelicosan battleships had transformed into something ready to charge right into Meridan space and blast everything it could find. There also seemed to be about twice as many ships as there had been the day before, and they’d moved in some of their Striker craft, high-speed cruisers designed to reach out and disable sensors to blind the enemy quickly before a follow-on force.
“I’m guessing that’s not a blockade formation anymore,” the Viking said.
“No, ma’am,” McSchmidt said, swallowing. “It’s not.”
McSchmidt changed the image, revealing a close up of a couple of the Battle Spiders grouped in a wedge formation pointing toward the Meridan border. He’d highlighted some of the armament appendages.
“These show a heat scanner’s evaluation of activity,” McSchmidt said, pointing to the highlights. “The Thelicosans run up-down rotations of their weapon arrays before they think they’re going to use them; it warms up the turrets so that there’s less of a chance of them overheating when the fighting actually starts.”
An uncomfortable silence settled over the room as everyone took that in.
“Where did all the extra ships come from?” R
ogers asked.
“That’s the thing,” McSchmidt said, zooming back out to the overview of the enemy formation as reported by the Meridan’s sensor arrays. “I have no idea. There’s an Un-Space point near the edge of this position, but for so many ships to come out of it in the space of a day and regroup is . . . Well, it’s not really possible.”
“Some kind of cloaking?” the Viking asked.
“It’s possible,” McSchmidt said. “I haven’t heard of the Thelicosans developing any kind of cloaking device that big.”
That wasn’t good news either. If they’d developed that kind of stealth technology, and the sensor arrays’ data was several days old, the Thelicosans could already have ships sitting right next to the Flagship with the cannons armed, and the 331st would have no idea. The Two Hundred Years’ (and Counting) Peace could evaporate—along with the entire 331st—in seconds.
Something about it all seemed very wrong to Rogers, but that could have just been his unabashed, panic-stricken fear of combat.
“That’s all I have for you today, sir,” McSchmidt said. “I’ll talk to the rest of the intel troops and see if we can’t come up with something more solid for you tomorrow.”
The briefing broke up, everyone returning to their normal duties with a somber sense of dread hanging over them. Klein didn’t even stand up and say anything charismatic, though someone in the far side of the room too far away to hear stood up and gave Klein a slow, dramatic salute anyway. Habits were hard to break, Rogers supposed.
For once, though, Rogers didn’t have his mind on an impending invasion or his boss’s incompetence. The Viking was slowly making her way out of the briefing room, and the recurring dream he kept having about being rescued from a burning room wasn’t helping keep her off his mind. Mailn was right. He had to make this right or he was never going to be able to focus on not dying.
“Captain Alsinbury,” Rogers said. “Wait. Hang on a second.”
“I don’t have time for a deserter,” she grumbled as she elbowed past him.
He skirted around the edge of the helmsman’s desk and hopped over a small railing, putting himself directly between her and the bridge’s exit.
“I’m not a deserter,” he said. “I can’t even make cupcakes.”
He grinned and raised his eyebrows. She wound back her fist.
“Wait!” he cried, not at all like a small child, and put his hands in front of his face as if that would do anything to stop the haymaker of the strongest woman he’d ever met. When he didn’t feel like he’d been hit by a truck, he peeked through his makeshift guard and saw the Viking standing with her arms folded, eyes boring into his skull.
“Wait,” he repeated. “I just want to talk to you for a second.”
“I can’t imagine you having anything at all interesting to say to me,” the Viking said.
“I wanted to apologize,” he said. “For lying to you. And trying to jump out of the side of the ship.”
The obvious disgust on the Viking’s face didn’t lessen at all. “And?”
Rogers sighed. “And the space bugs.”
“Seriously, what were you thinking?” the Viking said. “Space bugs?”
“I know,” Rogers said, hanging his head. “I’m not really on my game lately. I didn’t really want to run away. It’s just that I didn’t want to be here anymore and I’m not allowed to leave voluntarily.”
The Viking’s frown deepened. Rogers cleared his throat.
“It’s not that I wanted to run away. It’s that I’m scared of actually having to fight anyone.”
“Keep digging, metalhead.”
Rogers grit his teeth and pulled at his beard. “You’re not making this very easy. Look, I’m doing my best now, alright? I’m trying to piece this group back together and get us ready for whatever . . .” He gestured at where the briefing screen had been. “Whatever is or isn’t coming our way. Didn’t I put someone back into Engineering who could actually fix things?”
The Viking shrugged. “I guess.”
“Didn’t I put someone who could speak back into Intelligence?”
She sighed. “Yeah.”
“My point is that I’m trying to make up for it. And if this war comes, I’m going to need someone to share an escape pod with.”
“Rogers!”
“I’m kidding!”I Rogers said, miraculously dodging the punch that would have likely broken his sternum in half.
The Viking didn’t make to hit him again, so that was progress, he guessed. He straightened out his uniform and tried to look serious.
“I’m not sure what’s about to happen here,” Rogers said, gesturing toward the now-empty briefing screen. “But I have a feeling we’re going to need your help.
The Viking raised an eyebrow. “Me?”
“Yes,” Rogers said, “you. I don’t know anyone else on this ship that’s actually prepared to fight. Everyone else around here, including me, has been screwing around for the last two hundred years while you were actually doing what marines are supposed to do.” Rogers swallowed. “Not that you’ve been doing it for two hundred years. I mean, you don’t look two hundred years old. I mean, you look young, but you act old. I mean . . .”
“Rogers,” the Viking said. Was there a smile playing on her face? “I get it.”
“Right,” he said, thankful for the reprieve. “I’d just hate it if something happened and you still thought I was just some stupid metalhead droid-lover.”
The Viking chewed on her lip a little bit. “You are a stupid metalhead droid-lover,” she said, but the bite was out of it.
“Reformed,” Rogers said, shrugging.
After looking him over for a second, the Viking shook her head. “Apology accepted, I guess. If we’re going to have to crack some Thelicosan heads, we might as well do it together.”
Just the word “together” made Rogers tingle all over.
“Hey,” he said. “Now that there’s something without motor oil in the kitchens, maybe you and I could do the Uncouth Corkscrew sometime.”
She looked at him levelly.
“I mean go to the Uncouth Corkscrew. To eat.”
“I like Sewer rats,” she said, and started to walk past him. He felt all of the air come out of him. No matter what he did, he’d always be the cowardly metalhead. What good was stupidly sticking around to fight a war that you were certain to lose if you didn’t end up getting with the girl of your dreams?
“But sometimes, I like to put some Tabasco on ’em,” she said. “I’ll think about it, Rogers.”
Rogers kept a straight face until the Viking turned around, after which Rogers gave himself a celebratory fist pump. Corporal Mailn, who had been discreetly listening near the door, gave Rogers a wink, a slow nod, and a thumbs-up. Despite the overabundance of affirmation gestures, Rogers mouthed a thank-you just before Mailn followed her boss out the door and down the corridor to do whatever it was that marines did all day. Rogers had some ideas, but he was pretty sure they were all just fantasies.
“Hey, Rogers,” McSchmidt called from behind. Rogers turned to see McSchmidt walking over, looking rather spiffy with the new rank on his shoulders. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
“Sure,” Rogers said.
“Outside.”
They walked back into the hallway, Deet following silently behind them, where McSchmidt motioned over to a quiet spot in the large, somewhat-circular terminus of the command deck.
“Something’s bothering me about that data,” McSchmidt said.
“What,” Rogers said, “something bothers you about hundreds of battleships that weren’t there yesterday suddenly appearing out of nowhere?”
McSchmidt frowned. “You don’t believe it either?”
“It’s not that I don’t believe it,” Rogers said, “it’s that I believe it too easily.”
“You realize that doesn’t make any sense,” McSchmidt said.
“That’s only because you’re not listening close enough. You and I
both know that it’s not physically possible for those ships to be there if they weren’t there yesterday.”
“Yeah, but what about cloaking? New technology?” McSchmidt said, taking a moment to salute a passing commander. “Hey, where did that sling come from? Are you hurt?”
“Ignore it,” Rogers said. “The cloaking device theory is interesting but not practical.”
“Why?”
“At the Academy—” Rogers began.
“Yes.” McSchmidt blurted, maybe a little too loudly. “The one I definitely went to. To become an officer.”
Rogers blinked. “Yeah. That’s the one. At the Academy, what did you use for basic flight training?”
McSchmidt thought for a moment. “Paper airplanes?”
“Right. Because there’s no money. Because it’s peacetime. Why should it be any different in Thelicosa? We’re not in an arms race or anything. They don’t have the budget to come up with a super-secret stealth device and keep it hidden and install it on an entire fleet of ships and move them to the Meridan border.”
“I guess,” McSchmidt said. “But that still doesn’t explain why we’re seeing them on our scopes.”
“No,” Rogers said. “It doesn’t. I think that maybe—”
“Lurturnurnt Ruggers!”
“Munkle,” Rogers said, turning around, “get back to your post at the public transportation—oh. Hello there, Tunger.”
“Hullur to yurself,” Tunger said. He didn’t look happy. For that matter, neither did McSchmidt, though Rogers didn’t know why. The new intelligence officer eyed Tunger suspiciously, and his hands were balled up into fists at his side.
“I cun buluf you transferred mai to the zeooo deck!”
“I’m not going to admit that I may have almost understood that,” Rogers said, “and I’m instead going to threaten to slap you in the face if you don’t drop that ridiculous accent immediately.”
Tunger looked on the verge of sticking out his tongue. “I can’t believe you transferred me to the zoo deck!”