System Failure

by Joe Zieja

  “Why aren’t you coming?” Rogers asked, trying as hard as he could to make sure he didn’t sound whiny.

  “I’ve got stuff to do here,” the Viking said. “I want to make sure my marines get a shot at shore leave before we go out and do whatever ridiculous thing I am sure you are going to get us into.”

  Rogers and the Viking stood in the shuttle dispatch waiting room, doing whatever one does in a shuttle dispatch waiting room.I The whole room sported an off-brown color scheme, complete with beige shag carpet and vending machines that, for reasons Rogers did not understand, only took paper money. Rogers couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen physical currency, never mind used it. An old, creaky fan rotated in a crooked circle on the ceiling, and the distinct smell of cigarette smoke came from a thin paper air freshener hung from the bottom of the fan. It was labeled THE GOOD OLD DAYS.

  The room was empty except for the two of them and one guy who appeared to be sleeping there on a regular basis. Rogers discovered by visual inspection that it was S2C Ernie Guff, the space semaphore operator, still nursing a broken wrist.

  “Don’t you have a lieutenant or something that can do that for you?” Rogers asked. “It’s just scheduling work.”

  The Viking shrugged. “Not really. I’m good at it.”

  She’s good at scheduling work, Rogers thought. I bet she’s also good at managing messages and calendars, too. His plan to take the Viking out of the fight by promoting her to executive assistant seemed more and more brilliant every second. He wasn’t quite ready to spring the good news on her just yet, though. Maybe when they got back from Prime.

  “Well that’s too bad,” he said. “I kind of figured maybe we could, you know, find someplace to go once we got planetside.”

  The Viking’s chuckle rumbled just slightly louder than Guff’s snoring.

  “Slow your roll,” she said, but her expression darkened. “Besides, I hear you’ve got your girlfriend coming. I don’t feel like ripping anyone’s throat out today.”

  Keffoule. It was always Keffoule. Everything that woman had touched turned to shit. He really wished he’d been able to convince Holdt that this rendezvous should be Meridan personnel only.

  “I’m completely baffled at how everyone seems to think I’ve got the hots for a woman I have repeatedly told to leave me alone forever.” Rogers sighed. “Anyway, it wasn’t my choice. She’s useful for the whole war thing, but as soon as that’s over I want to be as far away from her as physically possible. With you, maybe.”

  “We’ll see,” the Viking said. “I only came down here to—”

  The door to the waiting room opened, and in walked Sergeant Mailn and Deet, who appeared to be in the middle of a very passionate discussion.

  “That doesn’t make any sense at all,” Mailn said. “The origin of the laws of armed conflict had nothing to do with salami.”

  “Then why were they made at the Genoa Convention?” Deet asked. “Commander Belgrave told me all about them.”

  “What are you doing here?” the Viking asked.

  Deet and Mailn looked at each other, each of them trying to figure out which one she was talking to.

  “I’m going to Merida Prime,” they both said simultaneously.

  “Oh no you’re not,” Rogers and the Viking also said simultaneously.

  All the speaking in unison really set a strange mood, so everyone just sort of stopped talking for a second to let that settle.

  “You’re not coming with me,” Rogers said to Deet. “Didn’t we already talk about me needing someone else to take care of the ship while I’m gone?”

  “We’re in a holding position in a tightly controlled space-docking area,” Deet said. “CARL can do that.”

  CARL—the Command Automated Response Lexicon—was a relatively dumb artificial intelligence used primarily so that Commander Belgrave could have even less of a real function on the ship. Despite still being a little angry at Deet for his stunt during the space battle, Rogers had to admit he was right.

  “Fine,” Rogers said. He turned to the Viking, who was looking at Mailn with a blank expression. “But why shouldn’t Cynthia come? I could probably use a marine or two down there in case I get into any bar fights.”

  “I’m not sure whether to resent that comment or agree with it,” Mailn said, giving Rogers a sour expression and a quick elbow to the ribs, which Rogers was unable to duck, since one didn’t really duck out of the way of an elbow to the ribs, and ducking was his only real means of defense.

  Mailn and the Viking spent a long moment looking at each other in a way that told Rogers that either there was something else going on here or they were scared of anyone speaking in unison again.

  “I really don’t think it’s a good idea,” the Viking said, sounding uncharacteristically serious.

  “Nothing is going to happen,” Mailn said. “We’re just going to meet with the head honchos, or whatever, and find out what our role in all of this is going to be.” She waited a moment, then shrugged and added quietly, “And maybe I’ll get some shore leave out of it too.”

  “Sure,” Rogers said. “You can have some shore leave. Everyone could use a break.”

  “Is nobody listening to me here?” the Viking said, leaning on her words in a way that kind of made her sound ridiculous. “There are things that would keep you better occupied here on the ship. And probably more relaxing.”

  Rogers frowned. “I can’t think of anything on the ship that’s particularly relaxing. And wouldn’t you rather I have a chaperone with Miss Kick-You-in-the-Face-and-Marry-You around?”

  The Viking narrowed her eyes and looked at him. “Do you need a chaperone, Rogers?”

  Rogers swallowed hard. “Um, maybe bodyguard is a better term? And since you’re not coming—”

  “Fine!” the Viking said. “Fine. Look, Mailn, you’re an adult. Just do me a favor and don’t do anything stupid down there, okay?”

  Mailn shrugged, avoiding the Viking’s gaze.

  “Are either of you going to tell me what the hell is going on here?”

  “No,” the Viking and Mailn said in unison. Then both looked at each other and said “Damn it!” again at the same time.

  “Everyone stop talking,” Deet yelled.

  “Captain Rogers,” came an announcement over the waiting room speaker, which crackled with either static or the announcer eating a bag of potato chips, “your shuttle is ready for departure at dock seventeen. Please report with your crew and supplies for immediate takeoff.”

  “Right,” Rogers said. “It’s time for us to get out of here. Deet, you can come if you really want to, but if I catch you plugging into random computers I am going to amputate your dongle.”

  Deet made a whirling noise. “I will cut off your [EXPLETIVE] dongle and make you eat it.”

  “I don’t have a dongle,” Rogers said.

  “Yeah, that’s what all the ladies tell me,” Deet said.

  “Oh go expletive yourself,” Rogers said.

  The Viking and Mailn exchanged another look full of meaning. Rogers was getting the idea that maybe Mailn had more of an agenda on this trip planetside than she was letting on. If it was really going to screw things up, though, the Viking would have told him. Probably. Either way, a marine sergeant, a psychotic math-happy Thelicosan, a droid, and some guy who’d gotten promoted to captain via a combination of accidents and asteroids were about to go talk to the most powerful people in the Meridan military. This was serious business.

  Suddenly Rogers remembered another bit of serious business.

  “Ah! Damn it—I almost forgot the most important thing. Hang on a second.” He pulled out his datapad and pushed a couple of buttons until he got to the supply depot. A mumbly female voice answered.

  “Get me Corporal Suresh,” Rogers said into the datapad. “I’ve got a list of supplies I want him to get once I get dry dock approved on Prime.”

  Rogers paused for a moment.

  “Actually, there’s o
nly one item on the list: beer.”

  * * *

  I. Typically, one waits for shuttles.

  Prime Beef

  “I don’t understand how you manage to show up everywhere I need to be,” Rogers said, “despite my every attempt to make sure of the exact opposite.”

  Corporal Tunger gave what might have been an apologetic shrug. His uniform looked uncharacteristically crisp and tidy, and his face absolutely brimmed with excited energy as he bounced up and down in the shuttle seat. His seat belts had been locked into place before the rest of them had boarded, and it looked as though he was already halfway through his third or fourth coloring book.

  “I think I’ve gotten used to coming on your adventures, sir!”

  “But this is specifically a closed manifest,” Rogers said. “You can’t just manifest yourself onto a closed manifest.”

  Tunger shrugged again. “I don’t know anything about all that, sir. I just asked if I could come and they said yes.”

  “Who are they?”

  Rogers didn’t get an answer. Keffoule, who had barely said a word since they’d boarded the shuttle together, sat across from Rogers with that creepy half smile of hers. She hadn’t changed much in the short amount of time since they’d last spoken in person, but there was something different about her disposition that Rogers couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t that she was more creepy (though she was) or that she was more terrifying (she also was), but more like she was keeping secrets. Maybe she’d gotten word from her own command and now held some secret intelligence. Rogers had no idea who she’d been in contact with since the end of the battle with Zergan. Whatever it was, Rogers didn’t like it.

  She’d brought another figure with her, the saggy-faced priest/assistant Xan. He didn’t look terribly thrilled to be along, but then again he didn’t look terribly anything at any point in time.

  Xan locked eyes with Rogers, and Rogers felt himself squirming a little.

  “I hope your intentions of bringing the Grand Marshal along are pure,” he said aloud. For some reason, Xan seemed to think Rogers was leading Keffoule on, despite Rogers spending nearly one hundred percent of his energy telling Keffoule to leave him alone.

  “You do realize,” he said, turning to Keffoule, “that I was specifically ordered by my headquarters to bring you along?”

  “Of course,” she said, her thick and sultry voice somehow cutting through the hum of the shuttle’s engines. No matter how Keffoule spoke, it always sounded like she was right next to your ear, her hot breath worming its way through your ear canal and into the parts of your brain that had made up all of the monsters in your closet when you were a little kid. “I am well aware of your intentions, Captain Rogers.”

  The way she leered at him indicated that she had absolutely no idea what his intentions were. Up in the cockpit, which was open to the small but comfortable passenger area, the pilot and the copilot were chatting quietly to each other through their headsets and pressing buttons.

  “Atmo entry in sixty,” the copilot called back.

  Rogers grumbled to himself. Atmospheric reentry was one of his least favorite parts of space travel.

  “Sixty what?” the pilot asked, loud enough for the rest of the passengers to hear. “Seconds? Minutes? Months? You gotta be specific.”

  “I agree with this,” Deet said. “Not showing units in any physics derivation makes the formula impossible to understand. You also get a bad grade.”

  “I understood perfectly,” Rogers said.

  “What are you, some kind of pilot?” the pilot snapped back.

  “Actually,” Rogers said, “yes. I also have eyes. The planet’s right in front of us.”

  The blue-green hue of Merida Prime cast a glow throughout the inside of the shuttle, and it gave Rogers some unexpected feelings. This was the planet he’d grown up on, after all, and he hadn’t been back in a long time. He’d always felt more at home in the empty expanse of space, anyway. Even on a planet as big as Prime, sooner or later things started to feel routine. Now, however, he was starting to think he could use some routine in his life. He might even consider watching daytime television.

  “Well aren’t you just Flash Fisk himself,” the pilot said, rolling his eyes and going back to the controls.

  Rogers had to take a moment to absorb what had just been said. “I’m sorry, did you just use Flash—my pilot, Flash—as a good example?”

  “Flash the Chillster is a legend,” the pilot said, as if it wasn’t an absolutely insane thing to say.

  “I am going to vomit,” Rogers said. Flash the Chillster sounded like the worst comic book character ever invented.

  “Don’t worry about it,” the copilot said. “We’ll break through in just a few minutes.”

  “That has nothing to do with my nausea,” Rogers muttered. How in the world was the rumor mill so screwed up that other pilots thought that Flash was any kind of role model? Aside from being a mediocre pilot whose best attribute was being willing to do things so blindly idiotic that no sane person would do them, Flash was about as dense as the inside of a black hole. And he never took off those stupid sunglasses.

  “Atmo!” the pilot yelled.

  Space technology had advanced quite a bit since humanity reached the Fortuna Stultus galaxy, but they still hadn’t managed to dampen the impact of atmospheric reentry. Deflection shields helped, but fiery plasma still wreathed the ship. The heat could be felt instantly, and the sudden reintroduction of a medium for sound waves to travel through made for a rude awakening. Despite all attempts to soften the blows, it still always sounded like an army of tiny stonemasons was trying to carve the ship into a scale model of the universe.

  “Hooray!” Tunger yelled.

  Rogers tried to tell him to shut up, but he was distracted by his body’s sympathetic nervous system’s adamant declarations that the ship was about to break into a thousand pieces. The sensation seemed to last for an eternity, the tiny hammer beats punctuated by the random loud slam that challenged the integrity of Rogers’ sphincter muscles in a unique way.

  The reintroduction of standard Meridan gravity settled into Rogers’ bones like the hug of a warm friend who was also really pissed off at him for something he’d done the last time they’d met. Ship gravity was all well and good, but something just felt different when it came to planetary gravity. Outside, the new elements of wind and moisture made a whooshing noise across the control surfaces of the shuttle, and both pilots were very busy reconfiguring the shuttle for air-based travel.

  From shots he’d seen of Old Earth, Rogers thought Merida Prime looked very similar. Actually, many of the habitable planets throughout the Fortuna Stultus galaxy had a sameness to them, adopting a blue-green hue with white clouds. All of the planets in their new galaxy, however, had much less landmass to them than those in the solar system. Why this was the case, scientists didn’t really have any idea. It was extremely unlikely that so many planets within a single galaxy would be able to support life without any terraforming technology, which led some to believe that Fortuna Stultus had already been terraformed. That didn’t make any sense of course; there was no evidence of any technology on any of the planets in any of the systems. Also aliens didn’t exist.

  Realistically, Rogers didn’t care. You could breathe the air, you could drink the water, and you could grow grain to make Scotch. Everything else was kind of tertiary.

  It wasn’t long before they were within range of Meridan Naval Headquarters, located in the center of the largest continent on Merida Prime. Fighter jets patrolled the skies, the scream of their engines penetrating the outer hull of their shuttle. Even at a long distance Rogers could see they were armed with anti-atmospheric missiles, capable of targeting enemy ships in orbit. Seeing all of this might have made his stomach feel worse than reentry.

  Seeing a pair of those fighter jets escorting his shuttle confirmed that it did.

  Seeing one of them crash into an asteroid was just really confusing.

/>   “How?” Rogers blurted. “That doesn’t make any sense! We’re inside Prime’s atmosphere!”

  “We operate in strange times, Captain Rogers,” Keffoule said mysteriously, as though she had somehow magically summoned the asteroid using secret F Sequence math powers.

  “Hey!” Deet said, bouncing up and down in his chair excitedly. “Hey, Rogers!”

  Rogers turned his head and frowned. “What’s the matter with you?”

  Deet paused for a moment, his eyes flashing. He looked like he was attempting to process something of monumental complexity.

  “What did the meteor use to get really big muscles?”

  Rogers blinked. “I have no idea.”

  “A-steroids!” Deet shouted.

  “This is the worst day of my life,” Rogers said.

  The shuttle careened through the airspace around Meridan Naval Headquarters, located next to just about every important building in the Meridan planetary government. Tall, silvery skyscrapers poked up from the ground in the city surrounding it, though all the governmental buildings tended to be short. Rogers thought it was to discourage folks from jumping from the windows; it would only inconvenience you with a broken leg, and then you’d have to deal with government-issued short-term disability insurance. Rogers would sooner hang himself in zero-g.

  The pilots began landing procedures at the nearest spaceport, and the view got much less interesting. Cobalt-blue water and green landscapes were replaced by the stone, steel, and synthetics of modern architecture, complete with all the sterilized accoutrements of government facilities. They’d gotten clearance to land in the direct center of the Meridan governmental complex, which would make ground transportation a lot easier. They settled down outside the secure area affectionately called the Monkey Pen by most of the people who worked there—and many of the people who didn’t. The intense security perimeter of the multiple-square-mile complex gave the feeling of being penned up, and people who hated real jokes had taken to calling those who worked for the government on Merida Prime as Prime-ates.

  Mailn stared at the window and gripped her pant legs with white knuckles, staying very quiet. Rogers had to find out what was going on here. As the shuttle settled down to the ground and began going through its shutdown procedures, Rogers unbuckled his seat belt and stood up.