"Where are you going?"
"I can"t tell you that."
"How long will you be gone?"
"I can"t tell you that, either."
"What can you tell me?"
Rogers took a deep breath, glanced around again to imply that he was suspicious of spies in the ranks, and whispered. "It"s a Foxtrot Alpha Kilo Echo mission."
Suresh"s eyes widened. "A Foxtrot Alpha Kilo Echo mission?"
"That"s right. You understand the gravity of the situation now, don"t you, Corporal?"
"Not even a little, sir."
"Good. If you did, Admiral Klein has given me strict orders to kill you. That"s why I have to use all these code words. Now, you"re aware that every position is critical to the war effort, aren"t you?"
Suresh straightened, looking proud-except that the ribbons on his uniform vibrated with his post-cryo tremors. "Of course! All the posters say so."
"Good. Then you understand that I need those Sewer rats."
The supply chief hesitated for a moment, frowning. "I"m not sure that makes any sense."
Rogers banged his hand on the counter, causing Suresh to completely stop moving for the first time since they"d been speaking.
"Sierra Hotel India Tango!" Rogers screamed. "Operation COMPLACENT PLATYPUS commences at twenty-eight hundred hours sharp!"
"I don"t know what you"re saying!" Suresh cried, his face twisting into a mask of horror, confusion, and perhaps a little bit of excitement.
"That"s because it"s cla.s.sified," Rogers said again. "I"m running out of time, Suresh. Are you going to give me the foodstuffs I need for a long and arduous journey through enemy territory, from which I may never return, during which my only solace may be that I have standard rations to chew?" Rogers leaned in close. "If not, we all might be slurping our soup someday soon."
Suresh"s face hardened. He leaned over, held an arm in the air, and ceremoniously pressed a single key on the keyboard in front of him.
"The STEWs will be delivered to your stateroom. G.o.dspeed, sir."
"You want me to do what with the targeting computer?" Lieutenant Commander Belgrave, the Flagship"s helmsman, said.
"I want you to shut it down at 1500 hours today for a half hour," Rogers said. "I need to clean it."
The targeting computer would have to be shut down if Rogers was going to get out of here without being traced. If they kept the computer on, it wouldn"t matter where he entered Un-s.p.a.ce; they"d calculate his trajectory and send a patrol to meet him at his destination. He couldn"t have that.
"What do you mean, you need to clean it?" Belgrave looked at him sideways, then narrowed his eyes. "Aren"t you the admiral"s new executive officer? Don"t you have more important stuff to do?"
If you only knew, Rogers thought. His fingers were permanently stained off-gray from polishing so many b.u.t.tons.
"We"re short on staff," Rogers said. "I need to go outside the ship to clean it manually. It"s got s.p.a.ce bugs on the screen and I need to wash them off. If you keep the computer on, the cleaning fluid will short out the system."
"s.p.a.ce bugs?"
"Yeah. s.p.a.ce bugs. Don"t tell me you"ve never heard of s.p.a.ce bugs?"
"It"s just that I didn"t think that bugs could survive in-"
"Oh my G.o.d," Rogers said, slapping his forehead and leaning back dramatically. "He"s never heard of s.p.a.ce bugs. How have you never heard of s.p.a.ce bugs?"
Rogers walked up to one of the large windows in the bridge and put his finger to the gla.s.s. When it came away, a small speck remained (it was a drop of Lopez"s vile concoction).
"This!" Rogers said. "This right here. You"ve got s.p.a.ce bugs on your window from flying around, and you don"t even know it."
"How is that possible? We"ve been stationary for years," the helmsman said, but he was starting to look a little worried.
"Only relative to yourself," Rogers said. "Didn"t you study orbitology at all? The square of the orbital period of a planet is proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its...o...b..t!"
Rogers took a few steps toward Belgrave, who was definitely getting nervous. He kept shifting his eyes between Rogers and the smudge on the window.
"Do you want the admiral to find out that you"ve never heard of s.p.a.ce bugs?" he nearly shouted.
"Keep it down!" the helmsman hissed, crouching into his seat. "Do you want the admiral to find out that I"ve never heard of s.p.a.ce bugs?"
"1500 hours," Rogers said. "Shut it down for at least twenty minutes. And go study Newton"s laws of interplanetary relativity!"
"You want me to give you what?" Ensign McSchmidt said.
"I need a pressure suit and a vacuum mobility unit. With a full air chamber."
"I"m not giving you a VMU," McSchmidt said.
Rogers pointed to the shiny new rank on his collar.
"I"m not giving you a VMU, sir," McSchmidt said, his face turning down in a scowl. "Our maintainers need them for repairs on the outside of the ship."
"Didn"t I say I was going to help you with running the engineering squadron and all that?"
"You did," McSchmidt said, his expression flat. "And I haven"t heard from you since."
Rogers shook his head slowly and made an exasperated noise. "You know, I had more faith in an Academy officer. I thought they taught you duty, and devotion, and when to understand that you have to give complicated and valuable equipment to people who ask for it."
"I"m afraid I skipped that cla.s.s," McSchmidt said.
"Well," Rogers said, "if you had taken it, you might have learned about the Roman Battle of the Caudine Forks, where-"
"You mean the battle where the Gauls used a bunch of shepherds to trick the Romans into a dead end and then laughed at them?" McSchmidt said. "Are you going to use the VMU to herd Thelicosan sheep?"
Rogers blinked. He"d spent an hour searching the net for obscure battles just for this conversation, and he felt a little disappointed.
"I"m sorry," Rogers said, "I meant the sack of Krak des Chevaliers in 1271, when-"
"When Baybars tricked them all into surrendering by sending them a fake letter from their own commander telling them to lay down their arms?" McSchmidt looked him over. "I don"t see you carrying any letters."
"d.a.m.n it!" Rogers said with startling volume. He cleared his throat. "I mean d.a.m.n it, I got it confused again. So many battles, you know?"
McSchmidt looked like he knew.
"What I meant to say was the . . . ah . . ." Rogers racked his brain. "The infamous Battle of . . . Battle of . . . Grumbleb.u.mble."
McSchmidt raised an eyebrow.
"Yes, the Battle of Grumbleb.u.mble," Rogers said. Lopez, who had been standing nearby, turned a loud guffaw into a cough and, at a sharp look from Rogers, scampered away, her face red.
"The Grumbleb.u.mble was a, ah, local term for a swamp. In east . . . Prussia. Ancient Prussiaburg."
"Ancient Prussiaburg."
"Ancient Prussiaburg, yes," Rogers continued. "In order to cross the Grumbleb.u.mble, Scipio Africa.n.u.s had to tell one of his lower-ranking officers to give him a special swamp boat powered by elephants that had wandered over the Alps looking for food. Very complicated, very new."
"I see."
"Right. But they wouldn"t turn over the boat. And do you know what happened?"
McSchmidt rolled his eyes and looked at his datapad. Behind him, troops were wheeling boominite containers in a circular pattern to make sure they all had their labels facing in the same direction.
"No," the ensign said. "Why don"t you tell me what happened?"
"Scipio Africa.n.u.s used his superior rank to make sure that lower-ranking officer failed every single one of his MWH inspections for the rest of his short, short career."
"Ancient Prussiaburg didn"t have-"
"Aha!" Rogers said, striking a finger in the air, "so you admit you know of Ancient Prussiaburg."
"I don"t have time for this," McSchmidt said. "If you don"t-"
"I"ve hidden four more racc.o.o.ns in the engines of some of your fighters," Rogers said. "I"ll tell you where they are if you loan me a VMU."
"Lopez!" McSchmidt yelled as he sprinted away. "Get the lieutenant a fresh VMU! And get those racc.o.o.n traps back from the zoo deck!"
"You want me to do what with your ship?" Hart asked.
"I want you to fly it outside and use the boarding magnets to attach it to the side of the Flagship. I don"t have the authorizations to move ships between bays, and your old engineer credentials are still good, right?"
Hart frowned at him. "My boys and I just spent a lot of our free time fixing that ship, Rogers, and now you just want to throw it away?"
"That"s not what I"m saying," Rogers said. "I"m saying that there"s no room in any of the other docking bays, and the engineering folks keep failing their inspections because there"s a random ship in the middle of the maintenance bay. By not doing me this favor, you"re directly contributing to the failure of the engineering crew to be prepared for-"
"Cram it, Rogers," Hart said. "Don"t pull your bulls.h.i.t on me. If you"re trying to run away, I"ll move your d.a.m.n ship."
"Right," Rogers said. "Thanks."
Oh, Chute "Well, Cadet," Rogers said, petting his unexpected feline friend on the head. "I guess this is good-bye."
Cadet showed his concern for Rogers" departure by turning over gracefully to allow Rogers to rub his belly exactly one time before scratching him. Rogers pushed the cat away, which, in a zero-gravity room, was a lot more fun. Cadet seemed to think so too, as he curled into a ball to do a somersault before latching his claws onto a floating fake palm tree, quickly forgetting that Rogers existed.
Rogers licked his lips, though his dry mouth didn"t do much to moisten them. This wasn"t exactly an easy or safe plan-jump out the garbage chute, use the VMU to rendezvous with the awkwardly docked Awesome, and then make a random Un-s.p.a.ce jump while the targeting computer was hopefully shut down. It was a lot of risk, but the prize was freedom.
The buzzer sounded, and Rogers sailed smoothly to the door and opened it.
"I"m here, sir," Tunger said, saluting. Rogers returned the salute, hoping it was the last one he"d ever have to perform.
"It took you long enough." Rogers exited the room and took a moment to readjust to normal gravity.
"n.o.body uses laundry bins anymore," Tunger said, gesturing to the large wheeled cart he"d pulled to the side of Rogers" door. "I had to pull this out of the museum."
"The Flagship has a museum?" Rogers said, perplexed. "And someone put a laundry bin in it?
"Not as an exhibit," Tunger said. "It was just the laundry bin. And yes, the museum was installed to replace the shuffleboard and Ping-Pong arena on the commissary deck. I"m surprised you hadn"t visited yet."
"I hate shuffleboard," Rogers said. Even so, he felt a little stab of loss at the demolition of one of the Flagship"s famous game rooms. What happened to the laser tag arena and the trampoline room, then? What good was a battle group"s flagship without a trampoline room?