Rogers shut his eyes tight, ignored the task for the moment, and left his room. Instantly, he was surrounded by people attempting to salute him or requiring salutes of their own because of their rank, and the vigorous physical activity/monotony actually helped Rogers take his mind off his situation for a moment. By the time he got to Klein's door and rang the buzzer, he was sweating.

The door slid open, and Rogers was treated to an opulent scene. Where Rogers' room was luxurious-albeit floating-the admiral's room bordered on ridiculous. It appeared as though Rogers had stepped into a palace on the lavish colonies of old Saturn, complete with marble floors, ornately detailed columns, and narrow swaths of soft, velvety carpet making walkways between the various spots in the room. Rogers wondered if the room's architect had come from Grandelle, the system where all the gaudy Saturnites had relocated post-collapse. Every piece of furniture, every piece of command paraphernalia and memorabilia cried out, "Leadership." "Power." "Authority."

Literally. There were actual pieces of decor that said those words in giant, bold letters. In fact, it was like the whole room was filled with military magnetic poetry. Everything was made from dark wood or gleaming bronze. Thick, bulky memorabilia from Klein's other a.s.signments before being transferred to command the 331st were on gla.s.s shelves, each of which had their own spotlight like some kind of art museum. Rogers felt a little bit like he'd stepped out of a command ship and into some sort of shrine.

"It's about d.a.m.n time," Klein said from behind a ma.s.sive thick desk. He looked more like a king on a throne than the commander of a fleet, entirely different from the impression of him on the bridge.

"Sir, you said two hours," Rogers said defensively as he made his way through the spotless room toward the admiral's desk. He felt his knees shaking. "I wasn't able to complete my review of everything. There were a lot of orders that-"

"I didn't tell you to review the orders," Klein said. "I told you to approve them. How am I supposed to get anything done on this ship at all if I have to review orders all day?"

You don't, Rogers thought. You told me to do it instead.

"Some of them were pretty important," Rogers said, "like complaints about strange things going on with the communications array and-"

"I don't like repeating myself, Lieutenant," Klein said. He was wearing a somewhat anachronistic pair of half-moon reading gla.s.ses and scribbling away on paper, and had yet to look Rogers in the eye. "I'm trying to keep everyone happy. When they ask me for things, I approve them. That's all. That's the goal of command."

Rogers frowned. "I'm a little behind on my officer professional education," Rogers said, "but is that really the goal of command?"

Klein finally looked up, the slightest raising of his eyes to give Rogers a "you're walking on thin ice" look. "Didn't I just say something about repeating myself? That's the goal of my command, and in case you haven't noticed, this is my ship. Now, if you're not done doing the simple task I asked of you, you can finish after you make me a sandwich. I have things to do."

The admiral patted a book on the table with a sort of motherly affection, and Rogers noticed for the first time just how many books were lying around. The one Klein had under his hand was a notebook, in which was a whole ma.s.s of insane scribbling. At the bottom, Rogers saw a couple of words upside down and bold.

We Will Be The Fighters of Fighting. We Will. We Will Seize. We Will Fight. We. Will. We Will Be The Winning People. We Will Be Victory.

We Will Fight. We Will Win. Those two sentences were underlined. The date on the top of the paper, Rogers noticed, was almost four standard months old.

Some of the other books stood out to Rogers. Public Speaking in a World Where the Public is Everywhere. You Schmooze, You Lose. Saying Things that Get People to Do What You Want.

And above the admiral's desk was a large, elaborately framed doc.u.ment on which was written the curious epithet: THIS CERTIFICATE SIGNIFIES THAT HAROLD C. KLEIN IS HEREBY INDUCTED INTO THE SOCIETY OF BURNED BREAD, AND IS TO BE GRANTED ALL THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES PERTAINING THERETO.

Underneath the signatures on the bottom was a large banner that said, GRADUATE OF TOASTMASTERS.

Rogers' bad feeling deepened to the point where it might have been confused with severe indigestion. It was actually probably also severe indigestion. But there was definitely a bad feeling there too.

Sighing, he turned around and headed toward the small kitchenette stashed against the wall. Since Klein was so "busy," he apparently had raw foodstuffs delivered to his room, where his previous execs had been cooking for him. Rogers wasn't exactly a master chef, but he was pretty sure he could slap some meat on a piece of bread. As he worked, he propped the datapad up next to him so he could continue reviewing-approving-the orders while he made the sandwich.

Rogers paused for a moment as he realized that this was officially the first "working lunch" of his life. He immediately began to understand a lot of things about suicide.

The room was disturbingly silent, with only the ticking of several decorative clocks all around the room providing the background music. Rogers wasn't really sure what kind of sandwich to make the admiral, but something about the way the admiral was sitting, hunched over his desk, made him not want to ask. Tapping through several orders-anything from transfer requests to materiel movements-he finally came to one that made him pause.

"Um, sir," he said, finally breaking the silence. "I've got an order here from the captain of the Infuriating about starting double shifts in order to double perimeter patrols. Are you sure you want me to approve that?"

Klein looked up, and for a moment, Rogers thought he was going to scream at him to just approve everything.

"Hm," he said. He tapped the nib of his pen on his desk. "Must be those Theracrisans."

Rogers blinked. "You mean Thelicosans?"

The admiral locked eyes with him, and, for some reason, his face turned a little red. "Yes, of course. That's what I meant. I'm very stressed, you understand. The Thelacisans."

Rogers let it go.

"What do you think, Lieutenant? You're a sharp young warrior."

Rogers hesitated. "I wouldn't call myself a warrior, sir. I'm an engineer."

"I thought you were the commander of the AIGCS."

"It wasn't my choice. Nor was I particularly good at it."

"Very often, good men are propelled to greatness in ways they do not expect," Klein said, his voice suddenly taking on the thick quality of a man behind a podium. It seemed to startle him. It certainly startled Rogers. Klein cleared his throat. "Anyway, you use your best judgment."

Rogers' bad feeling deepened. Why in the world would an experienced fleet commander defer to a lieutenant ex-engineer who was also a failed combat commander about battle formations? Why was he behind his desk drafting speeches? Why- "Rogers," Klein said, not quite barking. "What are you doing over there? Are you making a sandwich or thinking?"

"Um," Rogers said. "Both, sir?"

"Stop whichever one of those things doesn't get me my lunch."

"Yes, sir."

A Carefully Thought-Out Decision to Get the h.e.l.l Out of Dodge "It has to work," Rogers said as he finished tying two sheets together. He bounced off a piece of furniture and jetted to the other side of his room, where he lashed it on to one of the light fixtures. He checked that it was secure and took a deep breath. "It has to."

Three days. It had been three days since his first meeting with Klein on the bridge, and every waking moment afterward-and every moment was waking, since the admiral hadn't let him get much sleep-had been consumed with messages, task orders, brushing uniforms, polishing b.u.t.tons, and everything in the world that sucked. The man wasn't just a bureaucrat; it seemed as though he pursued bulls.h.i.t with relentless fervor.

Worse, he deferred to Rogers for almost every decision. Communiques back to Merida Prime. Patrol patterns. Cleaning schedules for the latrines. Things that Rogers knew nothing about. Rogers hadn't even gotten to hear any of the intelligence briefings to find out what was really going on; Klein kept him too occupied with making major command decisions that were way above his pay grade. It didn't make any sense. Any admiral should understand things like the boundaries of plasma wash from ships being too close, or maintenance rotation cycles. And he still hadn't p.r.o.nounced Thelicosa correctly once. Rogers had a sneaking suspicion that the admiral didn't know who the Thelicosans were.

In fact, given everything he'd seen, Rogers had a sneaking suspicion that Admiral Klein was an idiot.

But when Klein stood up and addressed the bridge, or the mess hall, or the engineering bay, or any place he went to strut around and talk to the troops, Rogers couldn't possibly think he was an idiot. He was eloquent, powerful, dramatic. Incredible. Every word that came out of that man's mouth when he was in front of other people was pure genius. It was when they were behind closed doors that Rogers wondered whether or not the admiral knew how to actually do anything useful.

It wasn't doing good things for his love life, either. He'd had a chance to talk to the Viking a few more times, but every time it seemed like anything was about to happen, like the kind of kiss where she'd hold him so tightly, it would almost be suffocating, or she'd challenge him to a wrestling match or really even simply continue standing there talking to him, he'd heard that infernal call over the loudspeaker: "Lieutenant Rogers, report to the bridge immediately."

He was never going to get anywhere with her. His love life was ruined. His drinking life was ruined. All of his lives were ruined.

It just wasn't worth it anymore.

"Okay," Rogers said, looping the sheet around his neck. He squatted against the wall, ready to jump. "Okay. Three, two . . ."

He hesitated. His knees shook.

"One, two . . . " Wait. Was he counting forward or backward? Was there some kind of protocol for killing yourself? Should he even be counting at all? What good was counting?

"This is stupid," he said aloud, and reached to untie the sheet from around his neck. Dying seemed like an awful lot of work for relatively ambiguous gain, anyway. At that moment, though, someone rang the buzzer on the other side of the door. This caused his pet cat-who he'd named Cadet-to spring from the nearby nightstand and sink his claws firmly into Rogers' leg.

Rogers jumped.

The rope went taut around his throat, and for a moment, Rogers thought it was all over despite his ambivalent intentions. Instead of breaking his neck, however, the elasticity of the sheets reached its maximum, and, like someone bungee-jumping in s.p.a.ce, Rogers flew back at the wall, squashed Cadet between his chest and the wall, and received another bite for the trouble. Despite being a little relieved to have his neck in one piece, in a small way, Rogers was angry at being outsmarted by Klein. Apparently, it was impossible for someone to hang themselves in zero-g.

The buzzer sounded again.

"I'm coming!" Rogers shouted, finally freeing himself of the improvised noose. He leapt toward the door and absorbed the impact with his legs, grabbing into part of the doorframe to steady himself while he made sure he was in the proper orientation to the rest of the ship. He'd fallen out the doorframe more than once by entering the gravity-bound section of the Flagship sideways.

"Good morning, sir!" Tunger said cheerily as the door opened. He saluted Rogers, and so did the next four enlisted troops that walked by.

"Where have you been?" Rogers asked. He stepped into the hallway-there was something disconcerting about floating while the person you were talking to was firmly in place-and closed the door behind him.

"What do you mean?" Tunger asked.

Rogers saluted a pa.s.sing lieutenant commander. "I mean, the last time I saw you was three days ago."

"Oh, right," Tunger said, saluting Rogers again for some reason. "I was getting that stuff from Supply that you asked for to help you secure your stuff in your new quarters."

"And it took you three days?"

"There was an inspection going on and everything was stacked wrong. They put the big stuff all the way in front, so there was no way to get to the small stuff in back. That and they sealed up the entire supply chamber in cryo-wrap on accident. Including Suresh."

"They froze the supply chief?" Rogers asked as he returned the salutes of two corporals heading toward the bridge.

Tunger shrugged and saluted Rogers on accident, likely a.s.suming that Rogers had just been saluting him, which didn't make any sense at all.

"They turned operation of the freeze wrap over to a few droids, and someone told them to 'stop everything.' You know how droids are."

Rogers did know how droids were, and he was liking it less and less every day. He almost slapped his forehead in exasperation, but it turned into a salute as a group of harried-looking starmen second cla.s.s rushed by. His arm was already beginning to ache and he hadn't even eaten breakfast yet.

"So, what did you get?" Rogers asked, gesturing to the small bag that Tunger had in his left hand.

Tunger handed him a bag. "I asked Suresh for something to stop everything from flying around, and this is what he gave me."

Rogers opened the bag, looked inside, and felt something he couldn't explain jump up into his throat and hold it closed for a moment. It seemed like an hour before he could finally get the words to leave his lips.

". . . Paperweights?" Rogers said, his voice trembling. "Paperweights?"

"That's right," Tunger said. "Just the thing to keep papers in their places."

Rogers looked up at him slowly, feeling malice drip from his eyes. "And what," he asked slowly, "is going to keep the paperweights down? There's no gravity in my room."

Tunger frowned. "You'll have to cut Suresh some slack, sir. He was a finance troop until a couple of weeks ago, before they put him in charge of the munitions depot and then rapidly transferred him to the command staff and then the zoo deck custodial staff and then Supply. Plus he was a little shaken after being frozen."

Rogers snapped a salute but quickly realized that there was no one else in the hallway. What was happening to him?

"Just forget it," Rogers said.

Paperweights were the least of his problems. In truth, he was starting to get used to working in zero gravity. He'd have to see if he could steal some bolts and a drill or something. Or maybe a lot of refrigerator magnets and some glue. The old Rogers would have been able to deal with this without a problem. He'd improvise a solution, talk someone into doing something they didn't want to do, have a drink, steal something, and probably make a little money on the way. It would have been easy.

"Oh, and one other thing, sir," Tunger said, saluting him.

"Stop saluting me. Just stop."

"Yes, sir," Tunger said, saluting. "I was in the Uncouth Corkscrew this morning for breakfast-which is why it took me so long to get up here today; all the droids were in line for the power sockets-and I saw Master Sergeant Hart in the kitchen. He wanted me to tell you 'she's all done.' Do you have any idea what that means?"

"I have no idea what anyone on this ship is talking about," Rogers said with a scowl. "Maybe he finally made some eggs that don't taste like-"

Wait. Rogers did know what he was talking about. He'd seen Hart and his crew working on the Awesome a few days ago. Did that mean they were done repairing it? That was fast, especially considering the damage, but Rogers imagined that the ex-engineers really didn't have a whole lot else to do. That meant Rogers had a ship again!

"No," Rogers said carefully, some instinct telling him to keep it a secret for now. "I don't know what Hart meant. In fact, I think I'll go ask him about it. I'm a little hungry myself."

"Just stay away from the Viciously Taunt the Enemy," Tunger said. "I saw a group of droids headed that way to plug in. They always gum up the works. And they keep putting the lights out."

Rogers barely heard him. His mind was working furiously as he very quickly considered some things. He suddenly had a ship again, and one that could navigate through Un-s.p.a.ce. He'd just actually contemplated hanging himself, though whether it was because he really couldn't take it anymore or if he just wanted to prove Klein wrong was still up in the air. There might even be a war coming, and that sounded really dangerous. That didn't make the Flagship a very good place to be.

There were plenty of places to hide in the Meridan system or any of the other neighboring systems in the galaxy. Criminals did it all the time. h.e.l.l, the whole planet of Dathum was practically filled with retired criminals under a.s.sumed names-that's why the Meridan government's taxation annex was located there. If the MPF hadn't seized all of the credits from the Awesome's data banks, he probably had enough to live for a long time without doing anything so pesky as "work."

But could he really take the risk? If he got caught, there was no way he could make a deal like this again. If he simply served out his term in the military, he could start again with a clean slate. He just needed to be patient. Bide his time. Endure.

Across the hallway, Klein's door suddenly opened. For once, he wasn't wearing pajamas. In fact, he wasn't wearing anything at all.

"Rogers!" he hissed. "Get in here! My shipment of new b.u.t.tons came in and I need your opinion on new battle formations."

The door slammed shut.

"Tunger," Rogers said after a moment.

"Yes, sir?"

"I'm going to need you to go back to Supply and get me a few things for . . . a special mission the admiral is sending me on. We'll start with enough Sewer rats to last me, oh, a month."

Rogers felt alive again. The spirit of everything sneaky and mischievous was channeling all of its power through him. He flowed through the Flagship as though in a trance, almost like a lucid hallucination, as he bent every situation to his will.

He was In the Zone. And it was awesome.

"You want me to issue you what?" Suresh said. He looked a whole lot paler than Rogers remembered him, and both of his hands trembled.

"A hundred and twenty Sewer rats," Rogers said. He should have known better than to trust Tunger to convince Suresh to give him supplies. "It's for a special mission for Admiral Klein. Top secret stuff."

"Do you have orders?"

"I can't supply you with orders," Rogers said. He leaned in for special emphasis on just how secret all of this secret stuff was. "If I were to show you orders, there would be evidence that I was going on a top secret mission. There can be no trace."