The lion reared, and Tunger, who had painted his face in swirls of random colors, gave him a grin.
"Keeping things orderly, sir. Hyaah!"
Tunger put his heels to the lion, who gave a mighty roar and charged into the oncoming horde of droids. He was followed by just about every animal Rogers had ever seen on the zoo deck and some he hadn"t even known were down there. The animals crashed into the droid reinforcements, sending metallic bodies scattering everywhere and giving Rogers a clear path to the Awesome.
Rogers ran for it.
He could hear battle all around him, feel the waves of near misses as disruptor pulses flashed by him. R. Wilson Rogers was running through the center of the apocalypse, dodging death at every turn, wondering every moment whether his next step would be his last. He kept his attention on the Awesome as he weaved around the other ships in the enormous docking bay, praying silently that whatever astral, omnipotent being there was out there would take time off from balancing his karma checkbook to save him from certain destruction.
Seeing the ramp leading into the belly of the Awesome open before him, he dove. Time slowed as he floated through the air, screaming wordlessly, and landed in his ship. Rogers turned around, not believing he was still alive, wondering what kind of ma.s.sive chaos he"d just made it through.
The hangar was empty. All the fighting had moved to the Pit.
"Oh," Rogers said to n.o.body at all.
Straightening his VMU and walking through his ship to the c.o.c.kpit with the utmost poise and dignity, Rogers went through the startup sequence as fast as he could. Hart and his crew had done a nice job on the outside, but they hadn"t bothered to clean anything up on the inside; shattered gla.s.s was still on the floor, the sticky remnants of the most expensive Scotch in the galaxy making sucking noises against his boots.
The engines fired to life, sending a shudder through the ship, and Rogers felt the Awesome automatically lift off into a moderate hover. The controls felt responsive, fresh. Hart and his crew had definitely done well.
"Alright, baby," Rogers said, giving the console an affectionate pat, "here we go."
Rogers pushed the controls forward. The first ma.s.sive door of the airlock opened as the Awesome approached its proximity sensors, and soon, Rogers was staring at open s.p.a.ce for the first time in what felt like a long, long time.
Taking a deep breath, Rogers accelerated. He hoped the droids hadn"t taken control of the Flagship"s guns, or this was going to be a very short ride. Throttling the engines to full as soon as he was clear of the external airlock doors, Rogers took a hard turn to swing back and start heading toward the top of the Flagship. According to the schematics he"d pulled up on his datapad, the gravity generator was located on the opposite side of the ship from where he"d launched, and, the Flagship being the size of a small city, it was going to take time to get over there.
As he turned around to face the ship again, Rogers got the treat of a full view of the 331st"s command ship. He was a little more appreciative of its beauty this time around now that it was on the verge of being turned into a hunk of melting metal with everyone he knew dead inside of it. That sort of thing tended to increase the sentimentality of the situation, he supposed.
As he sailed up and over the Flagship, Rogers took a deep breath. There was nothing he could do to prepare, no way to rush this any further, so he just sat back and took a couple of deep breaths. Open s.p.a.ce was all around him, the rest of the 331st totally oblivious to what was going on aboard the Flagship, thanks to the lack of communication. It almost looked peaceful, but he knew it was just a matter of perspective. If he didn"t stop the droids, the War of Musical Chairs, the largest human conflict in s.p.a.ce history, would look like child"s play.
He didn"t feel particularly good about what he was about to do-he wasn"t really the self-sacrificing kind of person, and he thought the whole thing was kind of tacky-but he didn"t see much of a choice. Glancing around the c.o.c.kpit of his ship, he remembered the events that had kicked off this insane term of military service, and couldn"t do anything except shake his head.
Doing so put his eyes on the storage locker where he had kept his supply of Jasker 120, which, he noticed, was slightly ajar. Rogers was positive he hadn"t been able to get the thing open; he"d spent many frantic days trying to do so, to no avail. But there it was. Rising out of his seat, Rogers went over to the lockers and opened it, then cursed.
He"d had eight bottles of it when he"d accidentally bashed it shut. Now there was one-and it was half empty. On it was a note.
Rogers, it said, you always had good taste. Thanks for the payment.-Hart.
Chuckling, Rogers picked up the note. On the back, it said, P.S. Stop stealing Meridan government property. And whoever did this paint job is a moron.
Rogers nonchalantly threw the note away, taking the half-empty bottle from the shelf and walking back over to his seat. None of that was going to matter for much longer, anyway.
Uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the cap, Rogers took a whiff. The Scotch smelled like heaven in a bottle, like a long-lost friend that had come back for, well, a few drinks.
Rogers sat down, put his legs up on the console, took a drink, and waited. And if he heard even one beep from that console, he was going to press the self-destruct b.u.t.ton.
Just as the gravity generator came into sight, his console beeped.
"d.a.m.n it!" he said, leaning forward. "What? What is it? What now?"
"Rogers!" came a voice through the communication system. "Are you there?"
"I"m here," Rogers said, standing up and putting the now-empty bottle of Jasker 120 aside. He"d have to be drunk to do this. "Who is this? You"re breaking up."
"It"s Corporal Mailn," she said. "What are you doing out there? I swear, if you"re jumping ship . . ."
"I"m not jumping ship," Rogers said as he prepared to jump ship. "How"s the fighting going?"
"Bad," she said. "The Viking took a hit to the shoulder but won"t sit down, and Tunger lost a gaggle of geese. The droids are everywhere. The Viking said you had some kind of plan. Whatever it is, you"d better get a move on, because I don"t think we can hold out much longer."
"I"m working on it," Rogers said. Looking at the schematics again, he made absolutely sure that what he was looking at was indeed the gravity generator. The shape was right, the location was right, and there were words painted on the outside that said, NEWTON"S GRAVITY GENERATOR MK 300: KEEPING YOU GROUNDED. Rogers was pretty sure it was the right spot.
"Listen," he said just before he put his helmet on. "I"ve got to go. Hold on to something, okay?"
". . . Why?"
"Just do it. And if I don"t see you again . . . thanks for everything."
Mailn was quiet for a second. "Rogers, what are you up to?"
Rogers cut the communication, disabled the Awesome"s emergency evasion features, and set the engines to a timed acceleration. Then he got his a.s.s out of the c.o.c.kpit and over to the escape hatch as fast as he could. The ship"s warning sirens were starting to blare, the computer warning of an imminent collision, even though they were still a bit away from the Flagship.
Rogers felt like he was going to vomit as he opened the hatch to vacuum and flipped on his VMU. Standing with his head out of the escape hatch, he watched the Flagship getting bigger and bigger by the second. He needed to make sure the Awesome was at maximum speed when it collided, but he also needed to make sure he wasn"t on it when it happened. He was going to have to use nearly all of the energy in the suit to stop himself from becoming a s.p.a.ce bug on the Flagship"s windshield. And if he didn"t get inside before the Awesome hit, he risked getting impaled by high-speed debris.
"You"re an idiot," Rogers said to himself. "You"re a G.o.d-d.a.m.ned idiot fool moron stupid idiot."
The Flagship was really, really big now. The engines would be firing any second. He had to time this right. But he was an engineer; he"d done the calculations for acceleration and inertia and all that. He just wished he hadn"t left the piece of paper with the numbers on them in the control room.
Rogers jumped.
His body flew into the weightlessness of s.p.a.ce, and he threw his VMU jets to full blast. He hadn"t done this in a while, however, so he only really succeeded in sending himself into a flat spin that did not at all help his nausea. By the time he got it under control, he"d managed to shoot himself a sizeable distance from the Awesome, and he was more or less on course to get to the hatch. s.p.a.ce seemed awfully big, awfully quiet. Rogers" own breathing made his ears ring.
Looking at the heads-up-display on his helmet, Rogers saw that he had less air reserves than he"d expected, probably from using them in the flaming control room. That meant he was probably going to have to choose between breathing and making it back inside the Flagship, which was not a choice he was looking forward to making. He hoped everyone inside was alright.
LOW FUEL, said a message that popped up on his HUD.
Glancing back at the Awesome, he could see the engines flaring to life. Full speed would be in just a few seconds. Once he got inside, he"d perhaps have a minute or two before impact. He could see the hatch, a big gaping hole in the side of the ship used by maintainers in case they had to do any external repairs on the escape pod ejectors.
Almost there, Rogers thought. G.o.d, it was quiet.
NO, SERIOUSLY, LOW FUEL, said another message on the HUD.
"I know!" Rogers shouted, immediately wishing he hadn"t wasted the oxygen. Just by eyeballing the distance between him and the airlock, he knew he wasn"t going to make it.
With a couple of sequenced b.u.t.ton presses inside his touch-sensitive gloves, Rogers began to reroute his oxygen supply to the air vents. His lungs reacted immediately by expanding for more air, but Rogers moderated it as much as he could, tears welling in his eyes from the effort. Why did it always have to be so hard? Lately, it seemed like he was dating hypoxia.
Rogers glanced at the Awesome one last time. He was going to miss that ship. And its c.r.a.ppy paint job.
The artificial gravity of the ship seized him and he crashed to the floor inside the airlock.
Pushing himself to his feet and resisting the urge to take off his helmet-one side of the airlock was still open to s.p.a.ce, after all-he stumbled deliriously over to the control panel and started slamming every b.u.t.ton that even remotely might be considered the "close the friggin" airlock" b.u.t.ton.
Just before his vision started to blur, his lungs burning, he saw the airlock door slam shut.
Rogers gasped as he took off his helmet, writhing on the floor like a fish out of water. He"d made it. He was breathing. He was going to need to wash this VMU with bleach.
Crawling over to the exit, Rogers finally found the strength to stand and, listening intently for any activity on the other side, opened the door.
The escape pods on the commissary deck were located far aft on the Flagship, a good distance away from the kitchens, but Rogers could immediately tell that the Viking and her marines had done the job. The whole place reeked of stale smoke and burnt metal. The floor was wet, the fire suppression systems having kicked off and doused the whole deck, likely frying the electronics of the droids" network as well.
If anyone had panicked and tried to escape, they hadn"t done it here, likely deterred by the chaos and fire. The corridor was empty.
Except, that was, for McSchmidt.
Rogers" first instinct was to kill the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, but, from what he could tell, the droids had already done a good enough job of that. The Thelicosan spy was slumped against the wall, a disruptor wound in the upper part of his chest. One of his legs was bent in the wrong direction, and, strangely, it appeared that someone had made a chalk outline around him.
One of McSchmidt"s eyes was open, and he very creepily appeared to be staring at Rogers. In fact, if Rogers didn"t know any better, he would have thought . . .
"Rogers," McSchmidt muttered.
Rogers squealed like a little girl.
"McSchmidt!" he said once he"d recovered himself and wondered how effective bleach would be in cleaning a VMU. He walked over to the injured man and knelt down next to him.
"You really screwed things up," Rogers said. For some reason, even though he had every right to want to reach out and throttle the spy, it didn"t seem like the right thing to do. For one, it was kind of overkill-McSchmidt"s wounds were clearly mortal. Also, Rogers didn"t like touching icky things.
"I know," McSchmidt said, his voice very froglike. He swallowed, then coughed. "You would have done the same thing."
Rogers reeled. "What? No, I wouldn"t have done the same thing. You almost killed everyone on the ship." He thought for a moment. "In fact, I"m still not entirely sure you haven"t."
"I thought I"d be a hero," McSchmidt said, looking up at the ceiling. "I thought I"d be welcomed with a parade or something back in Thelicosa. It was a convenient thing, you know, having the droids do all my work for me. I"m an opportunist, you see."
"No," Rogers said. "You"re a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Look, how much of this death speech am I going to have to hear? There are other things going on right now."
McSchmidt slowly closed his eyes and sighed, then lay still.
Rogers stared at him silently for a moment, then shook his head and stood up. The saga of McSchmidt the spy was- "It"s just that," McSchmidt said, taking a deep breath, "I never felt like I fit in anywhere, you know?"
Rogers rolled his eyes and knelt back down. He was starting to rethink his policy on violence and/or touching icky things.
"No," Rogers said, "I don"t know. I seriously cannot relate to you at all." He looked at McSchmidt for a second, thinking. "You told Tunger that there really was an invasion coming. But you were lying, weren"t you?"
McSchmidt grinned a crooked, weak grin. "Lying through my teeth."
Rogers looked up at the ceiling and yelled. "Dammit! It"s the not knowing. It"s the not knowing that"s killing me. Are you people invading or not invading? How many THEY"RE ATTACKING US b.u.t.tons are going to light up? Why would you do something like that?"
"I thought it might create more confusion. It worked, didn"t it?"
"No," Rogers said, "not really. I mean, the droids were already attacking us at that point, and-"
"I"m glad it worked," McSchmidt said.
"I just told you-"
"Rogers," he said, croaking, his voice barely audible. "If this all turns out okay, will you tell Mailn something for me?"
"No," Rogers said.
"Tell her . . ." His voice trailed off. McSchmidt"s eyelids wilted, and his chest stopped moving.
Rogers waited a moment, then stood up. "Finally," he said. "Now I wonder-"
"Tell her that-"
"Oh, for the love of everything sacred!" Rogers shouted. "Will you please, please die?"
A disruptor pulse erupting from behind him obliged Rogers" request. McSchmidt was. .h.i.t in the chest, and by the resultant configuration of his organic matter, it was very, very clear that he was, in fact, dead.
Rogers spun to find a small detachment of droids, all armed with disruptor rifles, standing in front of him. He stared at them in disbelief, his last bottle of Jasker 120 flashing before his eyes. The droids wordlessly fixed their weapons on him.
"CALL FUNCTION [EXPLOIT TENSE MOMENT AND THEN KILL WITHOUT REMOR-"
Something hit the side of the Flagship. The explosion knocked Rogers off his feet, and he never came down. The gravity generator had been destroyed, and with it, the Awesome. He wasn"t sure if he was feeling a lump in his throat or if it was the nauseating sensation of suddenly shifting to freefall, but he was definitely a little sad about it.
He could hear the clanking of metal all around him as the droids rammed into one another. A few stray disruptor shots made ringing noises as they put burn marks into the walls. It took a moment for Rogers to get his orientation back, but once he did, he saw a flying squadron of droids, looking-if droids could be said to look anything at all-very confused. Most of the disruptor rifles had fallen from their hands, but some of the robots were flying toward Rogers at an alarming speed, their arms warming up for some serious droid fu even as their comrades prepared to fire.
It was then that Rogers realized he"d barely noticed entering freefall at all. He"d spent a good portion of his recent life in zero gravity, thanks to Klein. And so, Rogers realized he had nothing to fear from the droids at all. Because he was a s.p.a.ce ballerina.
He bounced off the walls, bounced off the backs of droids, swung around using their legs. More droids crashed into each other, inspiring droid fu fratricide during the last seconds of their battery life. Rogers spun through the air, feeling like he was inventing a new martial art that was way cooler than any other. The droids couldn"t hit him. They could barely figure out which direction was which.
Then, miraculously, a chorus of "low battery" warnings rang through the corridor. It was the most glorious music Rogers had ever heard. He stopped his bouncing around and simply floated, staring at the droids becoming just flying chunks of metal one by one. Soon, he was the curator of a very strange floating droid graveyard.
It was over.
Finally over.
"Valiant troops of the 331st ATBG!" a voice over the public address system rang out. "This is your admiral speaking. You are about to face an enemy that is as clever as it is deadly. Before you enter into combat in the very halls in which you live and work, you must remember that the Meridan armed forces do not bow to . . . Why am I floating?"
Rogers leaned over and switched off McSchmidt"s datapad.
Finally, finally over.
Captain Rogers Rogers stood in the middle of the bridge, watching everyone around him work. The crew had adapted to moving in zero gravity pretty well once they"d broken out their emergency magnetic boots and stopped trying to put ketchup on their food. The bridge hadn"t been the site of any of the battles with the droids, so it looked more or less like it had beforehand.
Except Rogers was running the show.
Rogers keyed in the communications code for the engineering bay. "Hart," he said. "You there?"
"What do you want?" Hart asked.