by Joe Zieja
Rogers raised an eyebrow at him. “Something bothering you, General?”
Krell sneered at him and sat down, adjusting his terminal and resting his head on a propped-up arm. He looked like a schoolboy who had just been shaken down for lunch money. What had been going on in here?
“What are we going to do now?” Thrumeaux asked. “My government has been asking for gossip—um, intelligence—every ten minutes and I don’t know what to tell them.”
“Alright, alright,” Rogers said, waving his hands in the air. “Everyone sit down. We’ve got some decisions to make, and fast.”
He stood at the front of the room and began pressing buttons to bring images up on the center display as he spoke.
“Now that we’re not being lured into a trap by an insane psychic mathematician, let’s focus on what we can actually do to stop this thing.” Rogers emphasized the words as he looked accusingly at Keffoule, who at least had the grace to look away for a moment.
Xan, on the other hand, looked like he wanted to jump over the table and kill Rogers, which struck him as out of character. What was going on there? He also noticed that one of Xan’s face weights looked significantly shinier and newer than the other.
Rogers continued. “A very confidential source—”
“You mean Tunger,” Deet said.
“Deet, shut up!” Rogers cleared his throat. “A very confidential source who is definitely not Tunger has informed us of the actual location of the Galaxy Eater.”
An image sprung up in the center of the table, rapidly coming into focus. Everyone instantly recognized it.
“The Galaxy Eater is in Snaggardir corporate headquarters?” Keffoule asked.
“It’s not in Snaggardir corporate headquarters,” Rogers said. “It is Snaggardir corporate headquarters. Look.”
The image rotated and zoomed out until the shape of the station became indistinct. Eventually, as the camera got to the right angle, it became obvious what Snaggardir’s had done. The propaganda film they’d created of the Galaxy Eater had been the work of some very brilliant camera person; the colony of space stations and satellites that made up the HQ complex came together like an interesting three-dimensional puzzle, or an experiment in perspective by a very skilled artist. Suddenly it looked like all the buildings had combined into one, solid structure: the Galaxy Eater.
“Each of these satellite structures contain critical components to make the Galaxy Eater work,” Rogers said, pressing a button that highlighted some of the items in the picture and gave them labels. He had absolutely no idea what the labels meant, since most of them had been given science-y sounding names that Rogers could barely pronounce, never mind understand.
“What does that mean?” Thrumeaux said, pointing to something.
“I understand almost nothing about what we’re looking at right now except that we don’t want anyone to turn it on.”
Thrumeaux rolled her eyes at him but seemed satisfied with his answer. Rogers turned back to the display. Before he could continue, however, Krell piped up.
“What if we take a small group of ships, fly into one of the exhaust ports, and use fighter/bomber munitions to blow the reactor core?”
Rogers stared at him. “Please stop suggesting that.”
Everyone was quiet for a moment as they considered the ridiculousness of this scheme. Rogers took the opportunity to seize back the talking stick.
“A direct assault on the Galaxy Eater would likely cause the Jupiterians to flip the switch and start the collapse,” Rogers said. “So that’s out. Besides, if they’re able to spoof intelligence reports and lead us to the wrong location for the Galaxy Eater in the first place, we can’t reliably know how much firepower they have surrounding the device. It could be a massive fleet.”
Keffoule actually snickered. “So we sneak in? I like this plan already.”
Frowning, Rogers changed the display so that the main building was in focus. The “shape” of the Galaxy Eater vanished, and everything just started to look like a space station complex again. The main building—what had been the original Snaggardir HQ—looked a little outdated from a space station standpoint, since it was well over a hundred years old. Old things could still kill you, though.
“Well, you might not like this part,” Rogers said. He took a deep breath. “We’re only able to fit a few of us on a small ship that’s controlled by droids. And we have to go in three hours or we’ll miss the window forever.”
Everyone started talking at once. Rogers couldn’t quite make out what anyone was saying—primarily because he’d put a finger in each ear and started yelling “la la la” as loudly as he could—but it was clear from the expressions on their faces that absolutely nobody liked this idea. Xan, the most subdued of the bunch, stared at him with wide eyes.
When it seemed like everyone had yelled themselves until they were blue in the face, Rogers gingerly took his fingers out of his ears and looked around the room. Krell looked physically exhausted; he’d stood up and actually been shaking a fist at Rogers while screaming. Rogers didn’t really understand how a man prone to such outbursts could have come from the same place as Xan.
“Everyone good?” Rogers said. “Feel better?”
The system commanders each slowly nodded. Krell kind of huffed back into his seat and crossed his arms.
“I assume you’ve all figured out by now that this is our last-ditch effort to avoid galactic destruction. I’ve already cleared this with Holdt, who said that we were authorized to use ‘any available means’ to stop the Galaxy Eater, which is admiral-speak for ‘I am completely out of ideas and don’t want to take responsibility for what you do with the resources I’ve given you.’ ”
“I’ve definitely said that to my people,” Thrumeaux said, inspiring a chorus of agreement from the other two military leaders.
“So what’s the actual plan, then?” Keffoule said. Something hid behind her eyes that Rogers couldn’t quite place. He certainly didn’t think it was fear—Keffoule ate ghost stories for breakfast—but there was a sort of reticence to her look.
“Right,” Rogers said. “The details.” He clicked a couple of buttons again, and an interior schematic of the main Snaggardir HQ building came into focus. An enormous structure that housed a tremendous amount of people and resources, it was also relatively simple in its design and construction. Efficiency was the name of the game when it came to running a gigantic company with so many fingers in so many pies; without a streamlined design, the Jupiterians would never have been able to establish themselves as the premier snack/military armament supplier in the galaxy.
“My top secret, confidential source—”
“Tunger,” Deet said.
“It’s not freaking Tunger!” Rogers yelled, then cleared his throat. “Anyway, it’s been revealed to me that the control system for the Galaxy Eater is located inside the main building. It can’t be hacked, because it’s a closed network that’s not even riding on the back of anything that broadcasts to the greater galactic net, so if you’re going to do anything at all, you have to be standing at the computer console to do it.”
The schematic of the building rotated and zoomed in, and a particular area of SHQ began to glow. This whole presentation had been Tunger’s idea, of course, and he’d been the one to come up with all the fancy visuals as well. When Rogers asked him how a spy had gotten so good at all these administrative briefing tasks, Tunger had simply grinned at him. New Tunger was just as weird as old Tunger.
“You’d think the control system would be within the main data terminals of the station, but it’s not. This here is an outline of the recreation area.”
Keffoule raised her hand. “What is ‘recreation’?”
Rogers ignored her. “It might seem like a strange place to store a control for the most dangerous weapon in the entire galaxy—and it is—but there’s more to it than that. There is a secret entrance into a server room somewhere in the recreation area.” Rogers sighed. “Unfo
rtunately, my top secret information—”
“From Tunger, the Jupiterian spy who is now working for us,” Deet said.
“—ends here. We know the general area, but we don’t know where within the rec area the door is, how to open it, or anything else about the system.”
Another button combination brought up a display that looked nothing if not archaic, like an old computer terminal before the Internet had been invented. There wasn’t anything included that might have indicated its size or construction; these were loose plans that Tunger had somehow acquired from the highest echelons of Snaggardir security. Tunger had apparently thought he might need some collateral; Rogers could think of no other reason why Tunger had been carrying any of this information on his datapad.
“This is the schematic we have on the engagement system,” Rogers said. “Like old nuclear systems, it requires two physical keys engaged simultaneously. Obviously one of them belongs to Sal Snaggardir, the CEO, but we’re not sure who has the other.”
He flipped through pictures of the main staff, the same folks who Holdt had briefed them on when this fiasco had started: Sara Alshazari, General Gerd Szinder, and Dr. Mattic. Each of them was a likely candidate for their own individual reasons, with the military tactician being the most probable, given his position.
“Why worry about that part of it?” Keffoule said. “Why not just destroy the activation system when we get there and make it so they can’t use it? Then we won’t have to fear a military assault.”
Rogers pointed at her. “Right. That’s kind of the plan. I just, uh, you know, thought you might want to know some of the technical details.”
He scratched his beard. It did make him feel kind of cool talking about all of this stuff. Maybe he should give briefings more often. There was something about clicking a button and pointing at pictures that made him feel important.
“Well at least we know to get very worried if we see two people running into the billiards hall with a pair of keys,” Krell said, his arms folded. For a guy who was supposed to be party to a plan to save the galaxy, he didn’t seem to be very enthusiastic about it. In fact, he looked downright petulant. What was eating him?
He leaned forward like he was about to go on complaining, but, unbelievably, his mouth stopped moving at a sharp look from Xan of all people. Yes, Rogers decided, some really weird shit had gone down in the war room while he’d been on the bridge.
“Fine,” Krell said. “So we have to go in there, find the specific console, and destroy it before anyone can use their keys. Then the main fleet can make a direct assault on Snaggardir’s without being worried that they’ll engage the device.”
They all sat in silence for a moment, each of them likely contemplating their own system’s part in all of this. Rogers had already done that earlier, but he didn’t want to make things awkward by being the only one of them not contemplating his system’s part in all of this. So he just frowned and looked at the surface of the table, trying to appear as though he was thinking very deeply. In truth, he was wondering if it was nacho day at the Peek and Shoot. He’d missed the last one, and that had been a bummer. Not like verge-of-galactic-collapse bummer, but still kind of crappy.
“Do you have jalapeño and olives?” Keffoule said.
“What?” Rogers said, looking up sharply.
“I asked, ‘Do you have an opinion on all of this?’ ” Keffoule repeated, looking a little concerned.
“Oh, right. Well, of course I have an opinion on all of this, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s our only option. We hitch a ride with the droids, infiltrate the facility, find the control console, and blow it up. Then we hope we can get out of the headquarters building alive, and also hope that blowing up the console doesn’t activate the device as a fail-safe.”
“That sounds very dramatic, Captain Rogers,” Thrumeaux said. She was kind of smiling about it, though.
“It is a little dramatic,” Rogers agreed.
“Of course, you will be leading the infiltration team,” Keffoule said.
Rogers goggled. “Are you kidding me? Have you ever, in your short time knowing me, seen me do anything conducive to military victory?” He looked around the table, hoping that someone would pipe up and defend his incompetence, but everyone just looked at him blankly. They agreed with Keffoule.
“Guys. Guys. I can’t shoot. I can’t fight. I can barely duck, and I get winded if there are more than six or seven stairs in a row.”
Keffoule shrugged. “That makes you inconspicuous. You’ll look just like a Snaggardir’s employee.”
Rogers looked at her. “Did you just call me fat?”
“Besides,” Keffoule continued, “you’re clearly the best one out of all of us at coming up with plans on the fly. Improvisation is a very important quality of any military operation.”
Rogers expected that creepy half smile to come from Keffoule, the kind that told him that she was undressing him with her eyes, but it didn’t. She was purely being honest. It was weird.
Sitting down at the head of the table, Rogers massaged the bridge of his nose between two fingers. They would need someone to coordinate the operation, but there were approximately sixty billion other people who would be more qualified.
“Fine. I’ll go, but it’s your funeral.” Rogers looked up. “Keffoule, you probably have the most experience with secret operations and kicking people in the face. I think you should come too.”
Keffoule nodded as though this was a matter of course.
“I want a couple of marines, and I also want my zookeeper.”
The group looked at him blankly.
“What?” Rogers said. “He’s taken to following me around like a fan boy. He gets really upset when he’s alone, and there may be animals on the station that he can manipulate to help us.”
They continued to look at him blankly.
“He is a really good zookeeper,” he said.
More blank looks.
“Oh, for . . . Look, guys, he’s the Jupiterian who gave me all of this information. He has to come.”
“Fine by me,” Krell said.
“That makes sense,” Thrumeaux agreed.
“Zookeeper it is,” Keffoule said.
Rogers looked around the table. His chest felt tight. His brain felt like it was doing dizzy spinning maneuvers inside his skull and was ready to vomit out the few remaining scraps of his intelligence and sanity. This was not how this was supposed to go. He was supposed to be turning wrenches in the engineering bay for two to three hours a day, and then spending the rest of the day drinking with the crew and playing poker.
Except beer wouldn’t save the galaxy.
. . . Wait. His eyes shot open, his mind racing. Would it? Would beer save the galaxy?
No, Rogers decided, deflating. No it would not.
“Alright, everyone,” Rogers said. “Go make peace with your calculus, or your god, or your reflection in the mirror. Whatever motivates you.” He got up. “I’ll see you in the hangar in two and a half hours, wearing six extra pairs of underwear.”
Retractor/Protractor
“Captain Rogers, a moment please,” Alandra said.
Rogers was busy exchanging what appeared to be some terse words with his omnipresent robotic companion. Alandra wasn’t really sure what she thought about him fraternizing with artificial intelligence, but they seemed to entertain each other at the very least. And Rogers would certainly need a friend to lean on after this conversation was over. A knot formed in her throat. She’d killed people, broken very expensive equipment, even once intentionally violated the order of operations by doing addition before multiplication, just to see what happened.I But she felt like what she was about to do was the worst of it all.
Rogers made a dismissive motion to the robot Deet, who ambled away, bumping into the doorframe as he departed.
“What is it?” Rogers asked. He met her gaze, but seemed disinterested and kept looking over Alandra’s shoulder, where the warm pres
ence of Xan could easily be felt.
Alandra swallowed. Why was this so hard? “There’s no easy way to do this,” she began.
Rogers tensed and took half a step back. “What are you talking about? Please don’t start the face-kicking until we need to.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Alandra said flatly.
Huffing, Rogers brushed off his uniform and stood straight again. “Well you’ll have to excuse me if I’m worried that every time you approach me, it’s not going to end well.”
Alandra rolled her eyes. He was being rather obstinate for the commander of, essentially, the largest fighting force in the galaxy. It hadn’t been miserable every time Alandra had talked to him. And she’d only kicked him in the face once. She’d missed the second time. The memory of that moment sent shivers through her spine, but she shoved the emotions away. Today was a day of choices.
So Alandra chose to let the remark slide off her rather than prove his point by kicking him in the face. In reality, she hadn’t kicked anyone in the face in a really long time. She couldn’t decide if she missed it.
Rogers looked at her expectantly, traces of impatience behind his haggard expression. She was going to miss that face. That beard.
“I am afraid I have to break off our engagement,” she said.
Rogers’ eyes went wide. “Wait, what?”
“I know, I know. This is not an appropriate way to treat a romantic relationship, especially not one that we have worked on together so hard.”
“Wait,” Rogers said again. “What?”
“I know,” Alandra said. For the love of Newton’s apple, she could actually feel a lump in her throat. For a moment she thought it might be an infection, but it became clear to her that she was actually getting a little choked up. “I know. It’s just that . . . well, I’ve found someone else. Rather, he found me.”
She could feel Xan stepping forward. A pale, long-fingered hand rested gently on her shoulder and gave her a squeeze. It gave her shivers.
“Wait,” Rogers said, his eyes darting between her and Xan. “What?”
The poor man was in shock. This was obvious. She’d wanted to let him down easy, but there wasn’t enough time for that sort of thing now. The galaxy was in peril; all loose ends must be either tied up or cut off as soon as possible. Hopefully, this wouldn’t compromise Rogers’ ability to lead the assault on Snaggardir’s. Compartmentalizing love and war was a delicate skill.
