by Joe Zieja
The Astromologer, in the meantime, had taken to staring at her as though he was trying to burn a hole in her head with his gaze. What was going on behind those dark eyes? Well, math, probably. But what kind of math?
“We must make haste,” the Astromologer said suddenly, breaking Alandra out of her thoughts. Without further preamble he turned and exited the bridge, leaving her standing there and wondering a great many things. Would he really be able to help them find the Galaxy Eater and stop it before it was too late? Or had they already reached the point of no return?
The entire bridge remained in silence, staring at the place where the Astromologer had been standing a few moments earlier. His presence was truly captivating; nobody seemed able to move. Alandra took the opportunity to take a deep breath, turn around, and address her crew.
“This will be my last time speaking to you as commander of the Limiter until this war is over,” she said. Heads snapped to look at her, the collective reverie over. These were her troops, some of whom had been with her since the beginning of her tenure on this ship. Their loyalty and competence had been instrumental in helping her counter Zergan’s rebellion. Now she had to entrust them into the hands of an officer who was much her junior in both age and experience. Would this really be alright?
“I am leaving you in the capable hands of Pre-Commodore Chinnaker,” she said. “You are to afford him every respect that you afforded me during my time with you. I go with the Astromologer to fight an enemy we didn’t even know existed until recently. May your parallel lines never intersect. Make me proud.”
She felt a weight on her chest, like someone was hugging her too tightly. This bothered her, because she never really saw herself hugging anyone, and therefore it felt like an impermissible violation of her personal space.
“As the Grand Marshal approaches!” Chinnaker shouted.
“The Limiter is limitless!” cheered her crew.
Yes. It felt like someone was hugging her very tightly.
She still didn’t like it.
Idiots . . . ASSEMBLE!
If the Flagship had felt crowded before, it was now a claustrophobic nightmare. Of course, since he was now the “chief” of the Joint Force, his ship would need to be the home base for the foreseeable future. That included inviting a bunch of people he didn’t know or like onto the ship and finding accommodations for them befitting their stations. The command deck of the Flagship didn’t exactly have a fancy hotel in it; for the most part, it was only his stateroom, the zero-gravity room, the bridge, and the room that the Viking had been moved into following Rogers’ totally not creepy request. That had been his first act as Klein’s executive officer, and possibly the greatest of all of his accomplishments. Perhaps his only accomplishment, actually.
And now they were completely screwing it up. He couldn’t very well have the Viking staying in a room that was more suited for a flag officer. The zero-gravity room was usable if someone had some very strange living preferences, and there was only one other empty room on the command deck. Where the hell was he going to put everyone?
“I can’t take this,” Rogers said as he stood on the command deck, his antisalute sling deployed, watching all the hustle and bustle around him. The command deck was usually full of hustle and bustle, of course, but in this case it appeared that everyone was actually doing work. That’s what really bothered him. “It’s just not right. I have to sacrifice the comforts of my people to allow all these foreign entities aboard my ship.”
There he went again. “His” people. “His” ship. Before he’d gotten himself into this mess, the only things he’d ever referred to as “his” were things that he actually owned. The way he spoke about the Flagship and the 331st Speed Bumps now almost felt obsessive.
“Rogers,” Deet said, “the capacity of the ship was vastly undermanned prior to the war. The addition of these new personnel brings us from seventy-two percent manned to seventy-two point nine percent manned.”
“I don’t have time for your semantics and math,” Rogers said. “I just want to be left alone.”
Each of the representatives brought with them an assistant of sorts, or some kind of adviser who they thought might he helpful. Keffoule had brought that perpetual potato personality Xan, of course. Krell and Thrumeaux had brought some nondescript sycophants, one of whom seemed to have the sole responsibility of lifting Thrumeaux’s cape so that it didn’t touch the ground, like someone who actually got paid to hold the train of a wedding dress. It seemed like a waste of resources, but the Flagship had people in conductor’s hats who basically ran an automated train system, so it was hard to criticize.
And then there was this guy.
“The space/time energy of this ship is rotating around an axis of alignment that I have not seen before,” said the freak space psychic that Keffoule had brought with her. The Astromologer, they called him, and Rogers could see why. He didn’t come over to the Flagship like a normal person on a shuttle, oh no. He actually flew himself, in open space, via the very complicated, custom-made VMU he wore. Ever since they’d met, he’d talked nonstop about planetary alignment, trigonometry, and horoscope predictions. It was a very bizarre combination.
“Yeah,” Rogers said. “Axis of alignment. Look, you can’t stay up here. I’m going to have to berth you with the rest of the crew. Do you have any preferences for places that it’s easiest for you to, uh, work?”
The Astromologer took a long, deep breath, closing his eyes.
“This requires some meditation,” he said finally, opening his eyes and gazing past Rogers in a creepy way. He paused for a moment. “And also a snack. It requires a snack.”
Rogers blinked. “Right. Um, hey, Tunger, can you show Mr. Clairvoyant here to one of the mess halls? I hear the Uncouth Corkscrew has those little prepackaged peanut butter and jelly sandwiches today.”
“Of course, sir,” Tunger said, cheery as always. Even though he belonged on the zoo deck, the corporal seemed to be omnipresent lately, finding excuses to be where Rogers was. They’d gone through a lot together, sure, but this seemed a bit more like a man crush than anything else.
“If yurl ferrlow mur,” Tunger said, giving the Astromologer a grandiose bow.
“Tunger, for the last time, Thelicosans do not—”
“Thurnk yer, yur vury kund,” the Astromologer said, and the two of them walked away, shoulder to shoulder like a pair of idiots with a purpose. The moved through the bustle on the command deck and disappeared from sight as they approached the entrance to the up-line.
“I do not like him,” Deet said.
“I hate Tunger too,” Rogers said.
“No,” Deet said. “The Astromologer. I hate him.”
Rogers looked at him sideways. “You don’t like him? Are you even capable of ascribing preference to humans and all that?”
Deet made a whirring noise. “Rogers, I am able to deliver humorous puns and witticisms with ease, and also talk to you about Jesus. I think I can handle figuring out that I hate someone.”
“Wait, since when can you talk to anyone about Jesus?”
“Since I downloaded a book about him. I can recite it to you if you’d like.”
“Please, god, no.”
“An ironic request.”
A moment of silence passed as the two of them stood in the center of the chaos of the command deck, people and bags flowing around them.
“I mean I really think I [EXPLETIVE] hate that guy.”
“Okay, Deet, I get it,” Rogers said. “You know, a lot of people around here don’t think that highly of you, either. You spent a good portion of the battle with the Thelicosans telling everyone that you were going to snap and kill them—”
“This is still not outside the realm of possibility, as I possess the source code for all of those functions.”
“—and at nearly every opportunity in the last couple of weeks, you’ve shirked your duty to go and chase your own ambitions. You were the first robot I had to pick up
from jail. It wasn’t fun. It didn’t make me feel good.”
Deet beeped and made a ridiculous attempt to fold his arms. They didn’t really go that way, so he ended up just making a loud clanging noise that scared the people closest to him. “Why didn’t it make you feel good? Because one of your troops was acting in a manner below your lofty standards?”
Rogers laughed. “Standards? What are those? No, it made me feel bad because picking people up from jail is what crusty old sergeants do. It made me feel old. And crusty.”
Deet slowly reached out and brushed Rogers’ shoulder.
“What are you doing?”
“I am attempting to discern your level of crustiness.”
Rogers sighed. “It’s an expression, Deet. You know, sometimes I start to think there’s a bit of humanity in there, and then you go trying to flake off my arm.”
Deet made a noise that was probably intended to be rude, but sounded more like an old video game. For some reason, it made Rogers want beer, but the request for supplies hadn’t come in yet. It seemed like whatever he did, he simply could not get a decent drink on the Flagship. There was a chance that Keffoule had brought some Jasker 120 along with her, but that would mean that he’d have to talk to her to get any. That was something that Rogers simply wasn’t willing to do right now. Thankfully, for whatever reason, Rogers hadn’t seen Keffoule or her aide yet. That meant he could give the two empty rooms on the command deck to Thrumeaux and Krell instead of her. Rogers had already been on a ship where he had to live close to Keffoule; he wasn’t eager to do it again.
“Can you explain to me, exactly, why we are standing in the middle of the command deck and doing no work at all?” Deet asked.
“Because,” Rogers said, “I’m an officer.”
“Rogers!” came a voice from behind him, sending a tingle up his spine. He tried to avoid turning around in a way that would have made him seem giddy and boyish, but it was impossible. If skipping in place could be considered a thing, that’s what he did as he turned to face the Viking. She walked toward him carrying what was, presumably, the last bag of things she needed to move from her room on the command deck. It filled Rogers with rage that she was moving farther away from him, but there wasn’t much arguing against it this time.
“Hello,” he said, grinning. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been a rolling ball of fists, feet, and battle cries, fighting just about everyone in the Seedy Underbelly. Rogers wished they could go back to simpler times like that, where furniture only existed so that the Viking could break it by body-slamming people into it.
The Viking, however, showed no real indication that she was being nostalgic about anything. Her face was set in stone. This wasn’t exactly different from her normal facial configuration, but Rogers thought that at least she could have looked happy to see him.
“Where’s Mailn?” she asked without an introduction.
“Mailn?” Rogers said, frowning. “Why should I know? I haven’t seen her since Merida Prime. She said she was coming back early to see you.”
The Viking looked at him for a long moment, her eyes narrowing.
“What the hell do you mean?”
Rogers’ goofy smile faltered. He wasn’t sure how else one could interpret the fact he’d just relayed, so he opted to just repeat himself instead. The Viking didn’t seem to appreciate the condescension.
“I have ears, asshole. But that’s not what she told me.”
“What do you mean?” Rogers asked.
“I mean that’s not what she told me,” the Viking said flatly.
Rogers held up his hands. “Okay, okay. This isn’t getting us anywhere. What did Mailn tell you?”
The Viking folded her arms, looking around the room as she thought. “She told me she was staying with you on Merida Prime until you came back. She said she was coming back with you.”
“Pardon my intrusion,” Deet said, “but these two scenarios appear to be mutually exclusive.”
“No shit,” the Viking said.
“No shit,” Rogers said.
Deet looked between the two of them. “I am also in agreement on the lack of [EXCREMENT], but do not see how this is relevant to our current discussion of Mailn’s whereabouts.”
Rogers ignored him. In fact, he ignored just about everything for a moment, staring at a spot on the floor. Mailn had been acting really strange, but he’d never known her to lie to him or the Viking. What did that mean? If she hadn’t been on the ship, and she hadn’t been on Merida Prime with Rogers . . .
“I’m not sure where she is,” Rogers lied, loudly, “but it’s not like her to just disappear like that. I’m sure she’ll turn up eventually.”
The Viking looked unconvinced. But, even though it gnawed at his insides, there were more important things going on right now than one missing marine. There was a ship—no, a fleet—no, multiple fleets—no, a joint force of absurd magnitude—to run. He hated admitting it, but it was true. Explaining that to the Viking, though, would have probably resulted in another dent in his forehead.
He was about to try to cheer her up when he saw Keffoule and Xan making their way through the crowd. Keffoule appeared to be looking for something, probably him. Rogers took one step to the left to put the Viking’s considerable size between him and the Thelicosan commander.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” Rogers said. “I’m just—”
Keffoule maneuvered her way back into Rogers’ line of sight, and Rogers took another step to the left. He bumped into someone from the finance squadron, knocking him into someone from the services squadron, knocking her into a marine. All of them glared at him, offended, until they realized who he was. Then they tried to salute him. Then they saw the sling on his arm and just got confused.
“Rogers . . . ,” the Viking said.
“What?” Rogers said. “I’m just, you know, exercising.”
“Is this about me trying to hit you again?” the Viking asked. “I already apologized for that, didn’t I?”
“No, it’s not about that,” Rogers said. “It’s about—”
“Captain Rogers,” Keffoule said from directly behind his right shoulder.
“Gah!” Rogers said, jumping away from the woman, only to find himself face-to-face with Xan, who wasn’t any more pleasant to be around.
“Captain,” he said, emotionless as always.
“Gah to you too!” Rogers said. He tugged at his uniform and straightened himself out, trying to present himself to Keffoule as anything other than terrified.
Keffoule, as Rogers expected, looked like she was dancing the fine line between complete relaxation and a predatory coil. A half smile played on her face as she took her time appraising Rogers in a way that he found very disturbing.
“What do you want?” Rogers asked. He shot a glance at the Viking; the last time those two had been in the same room, they’d put a dent in the side of a public transportation car. Already he swore he could see thunderheads forming in between them, though Keffoule seemed to barely notice the Viking at all.
“Nothing,” Keffoule said, clearly wanting something more than nothing. “I was simply coming to greet you, now that I’ve finished moving my things into my new quarters.”
“Already?” Rogers said, raising his eyebrow. “That was fast. Where did they put you up?”
“They?” Keffoule asked. “Who is they? I merely found a place that suited me and put my things there. I am not accustomed to having to ask people where to sleep, Rogers.”
Rogers rolled his eyes. “I have a feeling you’re going to be getting accustomed to a lot of new things. This is my ship, Grand Marshal.”
“Of course,” Keffoule said with the slightest of nods. “I am ready to take any direction into consideration.” She indicated over her shoulder with an open-fingered point, like she was carrying a serving tray. “I moved in there.”
Following the direction of her hand, Rogers drew a line to the room that the Viking had
just moved out of. His stomach sank. This was the worst possible exchange he could have thought of.
“Oh really?” the Viking said. For reasons Rogers could not comprehend, she was staring at him instead of Keffoule.
“Don’t look at me,” Rogers said. “Didn’t you just hear her say that she didn’t check in with anyone first?”
“So move her,” the Viking said.
“I believe the captain outranks you, gorilla,” Keffoule said, that half smile still on her face but her words icy. “The orders flow in the other direction.”
“Is it gorillas that throw shit, or monkeys?” the Viking asked, taking a large step toward Keffoule. “I can never remember, but I see some shit that needs throwing.”
“Stop!” Rogers said, stepping between them. “Keffoule, I’m not sure that’s your room. You need to check in with . . .”
Rogers scanned the room, looking for Corporal Suresh, the current supply officer. Except he wasn’t an officer. And he also wasn’t particularly good at his job, or pleasant to talk to. But he was in charge of room assignments and other quartermasterly duties aboard the Flagship.
“That guy!” he said, pointing at the corporal, who was standing near the center of the large, somewhat circular area of the command deck. Suresh was staring very intently at a datapad, looking up occasionally to examine something. “Hey, Suresh!”
The corporal looked up, searching for the source of his name. The command deck was so crowded at the moment that it took Rogers calling his name three more times before they finally locked eyes and he came over.
“Sergeant,” he said. “Or ensign? Lieutenant?” Suresh snapped his fingers. “Captain! That’s it. You get promoted so fast I can never remember your actual rank.”
Rogers gave him a wry smile. He didn’t know Suresh had a sense of humor. Then again, he hadn’t been back down to Supply in quite some time. Humor could grow on a man if the right seeds were planted.
The metaphor in Rogers’ head was getting kind of complicated and gross, so he opted instead to ignore Suresh’s joke and ask him to please, please, find Keffoule a room somewhere as far away from him as possible.
