Mechanical Failure Part 25

"Display something else!" Rogers said. "Maybe something to do with them attacking us!"

The image changed again.

"That's a h.e.l.l of a display," Klein said.

It was, actually, nothing. Open s.p.a.ce. Not a single thing on the screen.

"What is this?" Rogers said.

"It should be where the attack is coming from," the display tech said. "I took the data from the computer. This is where it's telling us to look."

"Never believe computers," Rogers said. "Slew the camera around. See if you can't find something."

"The light's not going off!" the defensive array technician said.

"Probably because they haven't finished attacking us," Rogers said. He stared at the image as the screen moved around, the stars blurring in the background as the outboard camera swopped silently across open s.p.a.ce. The whole bridge seemed to be holding its breath.

In fact, the whole bridge was holding its breath. Rogers was surrounded by people going blue in the face.

"Everyone breathe," he said, and was answered by a huge, collective sigh of relief. "It looks like a false alarm. Maybe there's something wrong with the-"

Something silver blurred past the viewscreen just before a huge explosion rocked the s.h.i.+p.

I. He wasn't kidding.

The Military Never Said Anything About War "What the h.e.l.l happened?" Rogers said as he picked himself up off the floor. The explosion hadn't knocked him down, but it was amazing what a full-grown admiral could do with a dive tackle while screaming, "Save me!" That man was just not cut out for combat. The fact that it took Rogers several tries to get to his feet because of his shaking knees told him that he was also probably not cut out for combat.

"Can't tell you, sir," the display tech said. "The systems are down. I can't even get a damage report."

"Get Communications on the line," Rogers said.

"I already did. They told me to reboot."

"The light went off," the warning tech said, pointing to the THEY'RE ATTACKING US b.u.t.ton. "We're saved!"

"Let's not jump to conclusions," Rogers said. "Did anyone else see that thing before we were hit?"

"I saw it," the Viking said. "Looked like a little s.h.i.+p to me."

Rogers walked over to Belgrave the helmsman, feeling dizzy and disoriented. He was nearly positive all the blood in his body was in his ears, they were ringing so loudly.

"What about the targeting computer?" he said. "Didn't that pick up anything?"

Belgrave looked up at him and frowned. "But you told me to turn it off so you could clean-"

"That was days ago!" Rogers cried. "Are you crazy? You're telling me the targeting computer has been off the whole time?"

"I just didn't want any s.p.a.ce bugs on it," Belgrave muttered.

"Sweet mother . . ." Rogers said, pulling hard at his beard. "Turn it back on already!"

Belgrave gave him a dirty look before flipping a couple of switches on the computer in front of him. There were a couple of perfunctory beeps and squeaks before the display in front of him came to life, along with an increasingly familiar voice.

"Congratulations on activating your targeting computer! You are ent.i.tled to one free lobster dinner-"

"Lobster dinner?" Rogers said.

"Just kidding," the computer said. "You are ent.i.tled to one free balloon to be redeemed at any of the many Snaggadir's Sundries locations available across the galaxy. Remember: whatever you need, you can Snag It at Snaggadir's!"

The targeting display blossomed to life, showing blue dots where the friendly s.h.i.+ps were, and a few yellow dots where civilian craft that happened to be transiting the sector were.

"There," Belgrave said, pointing at a fleeting orange blip on the display. "Something just entered Un-s.p.a.ce, but there's not enough data for me to tell what it was. It could have been anything."

"d.a.m.n it," Rogers said.

"We don't need to know what it was," the Viking said. "It was the Th.e.l.lies."

McSchmidt shook his head. "That doesn't make any sense, ma'am. They don't behave like that. Why send one s.h.i.+p? Even if they were testing our defenses, it would have been a squadron full of Strikers followed by a larger force. One s.h.i.+p popping out of Un-s.p.a.ce and firing at us isn't like them at all."

Rogers frowned. He agreed with McSchmidt, but something about the situation felt wrong. Like he'd seen it before.

"Admiral," Rogers said, walking over to the man who was still muttering about confiscating a balloon. "Aren't you going to do something?"

Klein looked a little shaken, but he was doing a good job of covering it up, aside from the dive tackle when the blast had hit. He'd recovered and was now sitting in his admiral's chair, tapping his fingers nervously on the armrest.

"I can't think of anything to say," Klein said quietly.

"Maybe instead," Rogers said, "think about something to do. And if you can't do that, consider trying to calm everyone down while we figure out what happened. Everyone felt that explosion; they need to know that we're not about to get torn in half by Thelicosan plasma cannons."

"We're about to get torn in half by Thelicosan plasma cannons?" the admiral half shouted.

For some reason, Klein's words echoed through the PA system. Everyone on the bridge stopped for a moment.

"Whoops," a starman first cla.s.s said from behind his terminal. "Should I not have turned on the All Personnel Address System? I thought you said the admiral was going to tell everyone something."

Lights started to flash on the dashboard from all the incoming calls from the other areas of the s.h.i.+p, everyone wondering what the h.e.l.l was going on.

"Klein," Rogers said in a warning tone.

"I can't," Klein whispered. "You and I both know that I don't know what I'm doing. If I can't talk to the Thelicosans, I can't do anything about it. I don't even know who to talk to, never mind what to say. Is there any chance of them having a meeting about this? I can deliver a killer slide show presentation."

"Probably not," Rogers said. "You need to take command, Admiral. This is your fleet."

Klein's countenance broke for a moment-the man looked like he was about to sob again, and Rogers didn't know if he could handle that-but he pulled it together. "I can't. I can't." He looked at Rogers, his face brightening. "I have an idea. You do it."

"Me?" Rogers said, his voice squeaking. "I'm not the admiral of the fleet! I have no practical experience in-"

"Everyone!" Klein said. The room went silent. "I'm required in my stateroom to . . . a.n.a.lyze things. For the war effort. Communications must be sent to Meridan headquarters to inform them of recent happenings. In the meantime, I'm leaving Lieutenant Rogers in command of the bridge."

"What?" Rogers said.

"What?" the Viking said.

"Fear not, valiant soldiers of justice!" Klein said, puffing up his chest as he slowly began backing out of the room. "Rogers can handle everything in my absence."

"He's a lieutenant!" McSchmidt said. "I mean, not a lieutenant lieutenant, but still a lieutenant. He's like . . . six ranks below you!"

"For victory!" Klein shouted as he reached the door. "For glory! For honor! Galactic agility! Synergistic battles.p.a.ce effects! Slide shows!"

The door closed, leaving the bridge a quiet s.p.a.ce of emotional confusion as Klein's charismatic effects mixed with the utter strangeness of it all and lingered in the air like the clash of two cheap colognes. One particularly dense starman second cla.s.s actually clapped a few times from the back of the room, and the corporal next to her did that slow, dramatic salute thing.

And then Rogers realized the entire bridge was looking at him.

"You can't be serious," he said, though he wasn't sure to whom he was speaking. The lights on the communication tech's dashboard were still blinking rapidly, and he could hear him telling someone to please stop trying to climb out the window, and that pillows were not critical items to transport in the event of an emergency, anyway.

"Um," the communications tech said, placing a hand over his headset microphone. "Lieutenant Admiral Rogers?"

"That's not even a real rank," Rogers said. "What is it?"

"Well," he said, "I thought I should bring to your attention the following." He took a deep breath. "There are people in the kitchen screaming about a fire, there is a group of droids that seems to have been knocked over in the mess hall and can't get up, several animal cages have broken open on the zoo deck, the IT desk in the communications squadron is rebooting itself and I don't know what that means, and it sounds like there is a group of finance troops running toward the escape pods with their pillows."

Red-faced, the communications tech gasped for breath, beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

Rogers just stared at him. What the h.e.l.l was he supposed to do with all of that? He wasn't a fleet commander. He wasn't even a real lieutenant. He was an ex-sergeant who liked to drink alcohol, play rigged games, and trick people into doing silly things for amus.e.m.e.nt. This was insane. This was completely insane.

Deet, who had been quietly standing next to him, piped up.

"Can I make a suggestion?"

Rogers nodded dumbly.

"In light of the extremity of the situation, you should probably get off your EXPLETIVE POSTERIOR BODY SECTION and put out that EXPLETIVE fire."

Rogers blinked. "Expletive," he said. "You're right."

"You don't have to censor yourself," Deet said, sounding dejected. "It's not your fault I can't express myself properly."

"I was just trying to show some solidarity," Rogers said. He turned to the Viking. "Captain Alsinbury."

"What?"

"Can you take a small group of your marines down to whatever pods those idiots are running for and keep them from jettisoning themselves into s.p.a.ce?"

The Viking cracked her knuckles, a sound that did strange things to Rogers. "My pleasure."

"And afterward . . ." he said before his brain could stop his mouth, but he trailed off.

The Viking raised an eyebrow.

"Never mind," he said, swallowing. "Just keep those troops inside the s.h.i.+p."

She gave him a nod and bulldozed her way out of the room, knocking everything from people to heavy equipment aside in her haste to get into a situation where she might actually get to hit someone.

"Get Hart from engineering on the line," Rogers said to the tech. "Tell them to get some of the heavy lifters over to the mess halls and see if they can't flip those droids before they start an electrical fire. Bring fire foam. And find out why the fire-suppression systems in the kitchen haven't gone off yet."

"Yes, sir."

"Bring up the zoo deck so I can see what's going on," Rogers said.

The display technician changed the screen, and Rogers' heart jumped into his throat. In the middle of one of the camera's views was Tunger, lying on his back with a giant, full-grown male lion on top of him. The unfortunate corporal was trying futilely to fend of the claws of the powerful savannah feline.

"Oh my G.o.d," Rogers said. "We need to get him out of there! Turn on the audio so we can tell him help is on the way!"

The communications tech flipped a switch, but before Rogers could get a word out he was surprised to hear a cacophony of giggling coming from the two-way system.

"Stop!" Tunger t.i.ttered. "Es nur fair! Nur fair! Yur cheated!"

McSchmidt, for some reason, groaned.

"Never mind," Rogers said slowly. "They're just playing."

The whole bridge relaxed as a single unit. n.o.body wanted to see a man mauled by a lion on live video. Well, maybe some of them did, but n.o.body would admit to wanting to see a man mauled by a lion on live video.

"McSchmidt," Rogers said, turning to the intelligence officer, who was looking much more worried than everyone else on the s.h.i.+p. "I want to talk to you outside. Everyone else, you are to continue with your duties or at least continue looking busy until the admiral returns."

Everyone snapped to, engaging in the important-looking activities of picking things up and putting them down again, walking briskly from one station to another to examine a console that had nothing to do with their jobs, and pointing curiously at blinking lights on panels.

Rogers left the briefing room, immediately followed by both McSchmidt and Deet. When they were out of earshot of the rest of the bridge, Rogers motioned for McSchmidt to come closer so he could talk privately, but McSchmidt was looking over his shoulder.

"What is that?" McSchmidt said.

Rogers turned around and saw a brand-new propaganda poster plastered on the wall, but there was something different about it, something he couldn't quite place.

Oh, that was it. It was a picture of a giant panda bear with a melted face wearing overalls, sitting in the branches of a lemon tree. Underneath was written I CAN TASTE THE COLORS.

Rogers choked back a laugh. "I have no idea," he said. "But more importantly, McSchmidt," he said, lowering his voice, "I think there's a spy aboard the Flags.h.i.+p."

The intel officer's eyes widened. "A spy?" He swallowed. "Why would you think something like that?"