Mechanical Failure (17 page)

He also saw Corporals Mailn and Tunger a few times, and heard Mailn arguing with someone very loudly. Once, he was almost positive he heard Inspect-o-Droid awarding him a demerit.

In the end, it was the sound of scissors scraping together and the feeling of an acute heat on his face that brought him very suddenly awake.

“Get away from my beard!” he screamed, smashing BAR-BR 116 in the face with his fist and receiving an immediate reminder that metal was tougher than bone.

“What are you doing in here?” a woman—Mailn—yelled, and walked quickly to his bedside, where Rogers was now clutching his fist and whining piteously.

“C
ALL FUNCTION
[
PERFORM PRIMARY DUTY
].”

“Can't you see this man is injured?” Mailn said, stepping between
them. She put her hands on her hips, and Rogers noticed her finger was very close to the holster strap of her disruptor pistol. “Now is not the time for grooming.”

“C
ALL FUNCTION
[
DE-ESCALATE
]. O
UTPUT STRING:
H
E MISSED OUR APPOINTMENT
.”

“I don't care,” Mailn said. “If you don't get out of this room right now, I'm going to do something with those scissors that involves your ass and a blast of hot plasma.”

Barber Bot seemed to hesitate for a moment but eventually started wheeling slowly backward.

“C
ALL FUNCTION
[
RETREAT FROM SCARY LADY
]. A
UGMENTED FUNCTION
[
VOW TIMELY RETURN
].”

“Yeah, whatever,” Mailn said, her hand easing away from her pistol.

Barber Bot's torch flared to life one last time before he made a slow exit from the room, which Rogers now saw was a private suite in the
Flagship
's infirmary. He was no longer in a recuperation chamber but a regular bed. A remote vitals monitor chirped pleasantly.

“Congratulations on returning to consciousness!” the monitor said. “You are entitled to a complimentary twenty-ounce fountain beverage of your choice, to be redeemed any of the many Snaggadir's Sundries locations available across the galaxy. Remember: whatever you need, you can Snag It at Snaggadir's™!”

“So, you're finally awake,” Mailn said. She was grinning at him, but there was genuine concern in her eyes.

“What happened?” Rogers asked, lying back in bed. His whole body felt like it had just been put together from pieces of grenade victims.

Mailn chuckled. “You had, ah, a little incident in the training room with the droids.”

It all came back to Rogers in a flash. The marching, the control pad, the targeting practice. The fire drill. The pain.

“Oh,” Rogers groaned.

“You put on quite a show,” Mailn said. “Watching the video was—”

“Wait,” Rogers said, sitting upright despite the pain. “There's a video?”

“Oh yeah,” Mailn said. “There's a video.”

Rogers flopped back down again onto the pillow. “I never want to see it.”

“It's alright,” Mailn said. “I've watched it so many times now, I could direct a film reenacting it. How could you not know that a fire drill was happening? Your personal terminal should have told you when you woke up that morning.”

“First, I never trust a computer,” Rogers said. “And second, I don't even know what a fire drill is. The last time we had one was when I was in primary school. I'll tell you what, Cynthia: between the inspections and the fire drills and the being chased around by barbers, I don't know how anyone on this ship ever gets anything done.”

Even as the words left his mouth, Rogers knew they felt wrong. Since when did he give a Sewer rat's ass about getting anything actually
done
? He supposed that maybe actual, no-kidding work was preferable to all this idiocy. Any sane man would rather do his job than listen to Inspect-o-Droid issue him demerits, though Rogers had to admit he was feeling a little less sane these days.

“Anyway,” he said, “I'm just thankful I'm alive. I don't think a normal man could have survived that kind of pain.”

“Are you kidding me?” Mailn laughed. “Most of your injuries were caused by your head hitting the floor when you fainted like a little girl. You screamed like one too.”

Rogers felt his face getting red. He did not faint. He was brutally injured in the line of duty.

“Speaking of screaming,” Rogers said, changing the subject as hurriedly as he could, “I thought I heard you shouting in here. What's going on?”

Mailn's expression flattened. “You had quite the endless stream
of visitors. Just about every brass monkey in the fleet was in here at one point or another. Even Klein popped in once.”

“Klein?” Rogers asked, his voice cracking. This was bad. This was really bad.

“Yep. Said some really powerful stuff.” Mailn shook her head. “I'd follow that man anywhere. He's a true leader.”

“Powerful stuff  ?” Rogers asked. “What kind of powerful stuff  ? Why would anyone come in here and say powerful stuff  ?”

“Oh, you know,” Mailn said. “Just the standard stuff about devotion to duty and tireless perseverance in the face of adversity.” She scrunched up her face. “Come to think of it, I can't really remember most of it. But I know it was powerful stuff.”

“Hang on a second,” Rogers said, now even more confused. “Devotion to duty? I blew up the AIGCS!”

“Not according to Klein,” Mailn said. “Or anyone else that kept walking in here looking for interviews.”

“Interviews?”

“You discovered a potentially catastrophic bug in the AIGCS system,” Mailn said. “Without you, those shinies might have gone straight into combat and blown everyone around them to pieces. You proved that they weren't ready for deployment. You saved the
Flagship
, Rogers.”

A torrent of emotions washed through Rogers. First was relief; the AIGCS was gone. That meant he didn't have to be in command of them anymore. Second was confusion; if there was no more AIGCS, where was he going to go? Third was terror; he'd been highlighted as the savior of the fleet, people had come to interview him, and Klein himself had made a personal appearance. That could only mean one thing.

“Oh my god,” Rogers said. “I'm being promoted.”

Mailn saluted, grinning. “Hi there, Lieutenant!”

Rogers could feel his common sense withering away that very moment. Not just an ensign, the scrappy puppy dog of whom not much was expected, but something rapidly approaching a field
grade officer, the point at which all men of reasonable intelligence had a full frontal lobotomy and were awarded commands of large units.

“Wait,” Rogers said. “Lieutenant? Not Lieutenant Lieutenant? Just Lieutenant?”
^I

“Nope,” Mailn said. “You skipped Lieutenant Lieutenant and went straight to Lieutenant.”

“That doesn't make any sense,” Rogers said. “You can't just become a Lieutenant without being a Lieutenant Lieutenant first.”

“Lieutenant Lieutenant was deemed too low of a promotion.”

“So, just Lieutenant?”

“Yep.”

“Not Lieutenant Lieutenant?”

“Nope.”

“Oh my god,” Rogers said. “I'm being promoted twice.”

Mailn plopped down in the only chair in the room, relaxing. “Pretty impressive if you ask me. And, I'll tell you something else: the Viking certainly hates you a lot less than she did a few days ago.”

Rogers perked up. “Really?”

“Really. I heard her say something to the effect of ‘maybe that little shit isn't absolutely worthless after all' after she heard about the AIGCS being disbanded. Trust me, that's high praise.”

Rogers felt his heart flutter a little bit. Maybe this wasn't so bad. By being promoted to lieutenant in the Meridan Navy, he was technically the same rank as the Viking now—her being a captain in the Meridan Marines—which might mean she'd pay a little more attention to him. And he'd accidentally removed a major obstacle to their romance. Without being in charge of
a bunch of droids that were taking the Viking's job away from her, she would have far less reason to hate his guts or abuse him without his permission/encouragement. He could see her now, breaking down that door and lifting flaming debris off of him before carrying him off into the sunset aback a tall black stallion.

“Well,” Rogers said. “I feel a little bit better.” He looked at Mailn, who was still grinning at him for some reason. “Thanks for watching over me, by the way. I don't know what I would have done if Barber Bot had gotten ahold of my beard while I'd been sleeping.”

Mailn shrugged. “Hey, I don't absolutely hate you. Next to the marines in my platoon, you're the closest thing to a friend I have on this ship. And you're proving to be very entertaining.” The grin was back. “Plus, any chance I get to yell at a droid is too good to pass up.”

“Well,” Rogers said, “thanks.”

Mailn kept grinning.

“What?” Rogers asked, narrowing his eyes. “What is it? What aren't you telling me?”

Sitting forward in her chair, Mailn put her elbows on her knees. “You're not even the least bit curious where you've been reassigned?”

Rogers blinked. “I always thought that mid-grade officers just sort of roamed around the ship and made things difficult for people. They actually have positions?”

Mailn kept grinning.

“Will you stop that?” Rogers said. “Your face is going to freeze like that.”

Mailn kept grinning.

“For god's sake,
what?  
”

“I found out an interesting piece of news after Klein came in the other day. Remember how I said he just got a new executive officer?”

“Yes . . .”

Mailn paused for dramatic effect. “He hung himself.”

“No,” Rogers said, sitting up and gripping the sheets in white-knuckled fists.

“Which means there's an opening for a plucky lieutenant with bravery, fortitude, and aptitude to spare.”

“No,” Rogers said again, clenching his teeth.

“And there happens to be a brand-new lieutenant who fits that description and just fainted himself out of a command.”

“No!” Rogers screamed.

Mailn reached over and handed him his personal datapad that had been sitting on the stand next to the bed, on which was displayed his transfer orders.

“Congratulations, Lieutenant,” she said. “You're a secretary.”

Rogers walked through the corridor with his head hung so low, he could barely see where he was going. Beside him, Corporal Tunger nattered incessantly.

“This is so exciting, sir,” he said. “Two promotions and a chance to be next to one of the most brilliant men ever to grace the MPF! You must be beside yourself with joy.”

Rogers mumbled something offensive.

“I mean, really,” Tunger continued, “to have that level of responsibility and prestige thrust upon you after discovering one of the most dangerous flaws in the AIGCS programming. You've had quite the exciting career, sir! And to think, just a few weeks ago, you were an ex-sergeant.”

Tunger switched the bag he was holding to his other hand. He'd remained as Rogers' orderly, which seemed utterly absurd. It basically made him the secretary of a secretary, but the man had nowhere else to go. Apparently, all the people trained in zoo operations had been moved to finance, and Tunger had been the odd man out before the AIGCS came along.

“Are you sure they can't take you back to the zoo deck?” Rogers asked, trying to veil his hope that he'd be rid of the man. He still
hadn't forgiven him for running out of the room during the fire drill, and he'd never liked the idea of having an orderly, anyway.

“Oh no,” Tunger said, “though I'd be lying if I said I didn't ask for it once I found out that the AIGCS had been disbanded.” He looked up at Rogers, embarrassed, and added hurriedly, “It's all I know, you see. I've been managing animals my whole life. It wasn't out of disrespect, sir.”

“No offense taken,” Rogers said.

“Oh good. I wouldn't want to offend anyone.” Tunger sighed. “One day, though, I hope they pick me up for that spy slot. Chimpanzees—and you—are great, and all, but . . . Aie wursh they could see maie taalunts for whut they ur.”

Rogers shot him a look.

“Sorry, sorry.”

They boarded the up-line—which also went down, and sometimes sideways, so Rogers wasn't really sure why they called it the up-line—and zoomed through the belly of the
Flagship
toward the command deck, which also held the bridge, the war room, and several other conference rooms that Rogers hoped he never set foot inside. Part of the short list of benefits to being transferred to serve as Klein's executive officer included moving from the quarterdeck to a stateroom on the command deck. It also hopefully meant no more inspections, a room with a view, and one less glowing picture of a droid on his wall.

Rogers was dismayed to see that a couple of droids also occupied the small car, as well as a smattering of officers of similar rank to his own who all looked haggard and generally annoyed. None of them spoke.

“C
ALL FUNCTION
[
MAINTAIN AWKWARD SILENCE
].”

Rogers looked up to see the droids—three of them—standing in the direct center of the car, all looking toward him. At least, he thought they were looking toward him. How did one really tell what those glowing blue orbs were looking at? The last thing he wanted to deal with right now were droids, so he made it a point
to turn his back on them and look through the viewport at the head of the car, watching the guts of the ship blur by.

“C
ALL FUNCTION
[
MAINTAIN AWKWARD SILENCE
].”

“What's their problem?” Rogers muttered to Tunger.