Mechanical Failure Part 22

Improperganda The admiral had called a brief hiatus while Rogers had gone to recruit McSchmidt, and as a result the bridge had become a center of confused tension. The admiral didn't normally just sit in the middle of the bridge and do nothing, and everyone seemed to be doing their best to look extremely busy. Commander Belgrave, the helmsman, was rigorously spinning an old-fashioned ship's helm back and forth as though fighting a raging storm, and the display tech was switching monitors on and off at random.

"He'll be up in a minute," Rogers told Klein as he stepped back up on the command platform and looked out into open s.p.a.ce. He imagined that open s.p.a.ce suddenly filling with Thelicosan battleships, and he couldn't stop the b.u.t.terflies from forming in his stomach.

"Fine, fine," Klein said. "I still don't see what the problem with having Munkle here was. If there was anything important in the briefing that I couldn't understand, I could always read the notes later."

"Did you ever read the notes?" Rogers asked.

"No. I had my executives read the notes. I'm far too busy."

Rogers shook his head. This was hopeless. He was about to say as much when he felt someone slap him on the back of his head.

"Deet," he said turning around, "it wasn't funny in the garbage chute and it's not funny-oh. Corporal."

"We need to talk," Mailn said, motioning for him to step off the platform. For some reason, Rogers began to feel very nervous. He looked at Klein, hoping that the admiral would demand that his executive officer stay right by his side, but all he received was a dismissive wave.

Stepping down and following Mailn to a quiet corner of the bridge, Rogers thought he would head her off by talking first.

"Hey," he said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"

"Oh, shut up," Mailn said. "Look Rogers, everyone gets weird every once in a while and does something stupid." She shrugged. "I know I have. You're under a lot of pressure. I mean, of course I wanted to kill you, at first. But personally, I'm just kind of glad that you didn't hang yourself instead of trying to desert. I'd feel a lot more awkward slapping your corpse in the back of the head."

Rogers swallowed that uncomfortable and slightly grotesque thought.

"I can't hang myself," Rogers said.

"I know. You're a better man than that."

"That's not what I meant," Rogers muttered. "Never mind. I wanted to say I was sorry for letting you down. I should have at least invited you."

Mailn shot him a look. "Don't make me slap you again. I wanted to talk to you about the Viking."

Rogers raised his eyebrows and looked around, making sure he wasn't about to take another punch to the face. It looked like she had left the room during the break.

"What about her?"

"I'm pretty laid-back," Mailn said, "but she's not. She came in raving the other day, saying that you were still talking about s.p.a.ce bugs or something like that."

"So?"

"So, you can't keep lying to her, Rogers. The Viking doesn't play coy. If you want to get with her, you're going to have to be straight with her and apologize."

Rogers shuffled his feet. "What do you mean, 'get with her'? I don't know what you're talking about."

Mailn rolled her eyes, stepping aside as the returning targeting tech came back to his station, holding what might have been real food. Hart was out of the kitchens, so it made sense that the stuff coming out of the mess halls was actually edible again.

"You know what I mean." She looked over Rogers' shoulder. "Here she comes. Just think about it, Rogers. You can't con the Viking."

Brushing past him, Mailn moved to rejoin her boss and walk over to the corner of the bridge, where they'd be able to view the briefing. The Viking, seeing Rogers, spat.

The rest of the crew filed into the bridge, and McSchmidt stepped in front of the screen. After a moment, a comfortable silence settled, punctuated only by the beeps and squeaks of the routine electronic equipment.

"Sir," McSchmidt said. "I'm ready to begin."

Klein waved him on.

"I'll need more time to study," McSchmidt said, glaring at Rogers, "but these ship formations don't appear to be positioned for offensive action. In fact, it looks like they're more concentrated on forming a blockade, as though they thought we were the aggressive ones."

"So, what's all the fuss about?" the Viking said. "Blockading their own system seems a little pointless, doesn't it?"

McSchmidt cleared his throat. He looked uncomfortable, but Rogers attributed that to being new to the position. "The reporting isn't very clear, ma'am, but from what we know of new Thelicosan s.p.a.ce strategy, they also utilize a blockading formation as a baseline for forming ceremonial ship patterns. In a few days, you might see, say, a smiley face, or a star. It could just be a parade."

Rogers spoke up. "How old is this data?" he asked.

"Well," McSchmidt said, "I'm only becoming familiar with the sensor array now, but the information is probably less than a few days old."

So, what's all the warmongering about? Rogers thought.

"That concludes the intelligence briefing for today," McSchmidt said, turning off the display. "Are there any questions?"

"I have one," the admiral said. "Who are you?"

McSchmidt's eyes flashed to Rogers as he wrung his hands together in front of him. "I'm . . . Ensign McSchmidt, sir. I'm the new intelligence officer."

Rogers nodded. "You approved the transfer just a few minutes ago, sir."

"Oh, right, right," the admiral said as he scratched through some speech he was writing. "Well, I'm promoting you to lieutenant lieutenant, McSchmidt. I can't stand ensigns. Go change your uniform. And tomorrow, I want more colors in your pictures."

"Sir?"

"More colors. You should be showing all the enemy ships as red and all the friendly ships as blue. Here, they all look like they're made out of metal."

"They are made out of metal, sir."

The admiral leaned over to Rogers and muttered, "Munkle never argued."

"Munkle probably argued with you every day," Rogers muttered back. "You just couldn't understand a d.a.m.n word he was saying."

"That will be all, Lieutenant Lieutenant McSchmidt," said the admiral, leaning back in his chair and giving Rogers a dark, disapproving look.

McSchmidt saluted and, looking like a little kid who'd just been given a bag full of puppies, flounced out of the room, tearing the rank off his shoulders and whistling.

"Well, that's that," Rogers said. "Admiral, I need to-"

"Everyone!" the admiral said, standing up. Instantly, the room was focused on their leader with rapt attention, their conversations stopping as though they had been instruments cut off by the conductor of an orchestra. Eyes began to sparkle. Someone even began to cry softly, and Mailn raised one of those slow, dramatic salutes.

"Oh, come on," Rogers muttered.

"Men and women of valor," Klein said, his voice booming. "We face before us an intergalactic terror the likes of which have not been seen in generations. It will be a great test of our mettle, our resolve, our courage."

Klein began pacing around the little dais in the middle of the bridge, though there wasn't much room on it anymore, since Rogers was sitting there as well. So, Klein sort of just rocked back and forth as though he was doing a very bad dance to some very out-of-time music.

"The Meridan Patrol Fleet has been the symbol for peace for hundreds of years. In the whispered notes of our name resides the haunting hymn of triumph, trembling on the lips of every man, woman, and child under the aegis of our n.o.ble and holy cause. Under the watchful gaze of this fleet, none of them shall come to harm. That hymn shall be sung, and its music will carry the galaxy to peace-the same hymn that will be the dirge of Thelicosan aggression!"

The whole room burst into cheers. Everyone except Rogers was practically jumping up and down, hollering and waving their arms in the air at the rousing battle speech that Klein had just given. Except they weren't going to battle. And Klein was a moron. Rogers rubbed at his temples, a distant hope building up inside of him that he'd have another chance to get off this hunk of metal and go sip lemonade and Scotch somewhere for the rest of his life.

The room was still engaging in riotous celebration when Rogers and the admiral left the bridge for Klein's stateroom. It took a lot of restraint for Rogers to wait until they were inside to not start screaming at the man.

"Are you out of your mind?" Rogers said.

"What?" Klein asked as he shrugged off his coat and picked up a half-eaten sandwich. "Was it something I said?"

Rogers' eyes bulged. "Do you even hear the speeches you give? You just drummed up the whole ship for a war that's not coming."

"I did?"

"Yes," Rogers said flatly, "you did. Do you even know what a dirge is? It's a funeral march. You just implied we were going to slaughter the Thelicosans."

Klein bit his lip, thinking. Taking out a small notepad from his pocket, he began flipping through pages and humming.

"Oh," he said finally. "I wasn't supposed to use the music a.n.a.logy in that one. d.a.m.n it, I do that all the time. I must have mixed up the pages with another speech that was supposed to be delivered if they really did declare war. You're my secretary. Isn't there a way you can help me keep track of this stuff?"

Rogers made an exasperated noise and sat down on the floor, his back against the wall. Klein didn't take visitors into his stateroom, so he wasn't very particular on making the place comfortable.

"No," Rogers said. "I'm not going to help you with that. We're supposed to be working on straightening things out, remember?"

"So," Klein said, "where would be a good place to use the word 'dirge'? It's got such a nice ring to it."

Rogers sighed. "Never mind." He thought for a moment. "I have one other question I wanted to ask, Admiral."

"And that is?"

"Those posters that are up all around the ship-" Rogers began.

"Ah yes, the motivational posters. Brilliant ideas, wonderful language."

Rogers didn't remember any wonderful language, but he figured he and Klein were on the same page. "Sure. Those. Did you order them made?"

"No," Klein said. "They started popping up a little while ago. I thought they were in response to some talks I gave a while ago. They're sort of along the same theme."

Useless rhetoric that does nothing, Rogers thought. Sounds about right.

"So, who makes them?" Rogers asked. "Do we have a department for that sort of thing?"

"Information Operations," Klein said in the largest combination of coherent syllables Rogers had ever heard outside of one of Klein's speeches. "He does it."

Rogers frowned. "You mean 'they' do it?"

"No," Klein said. "It's just one guy. Ralph, I think his name is. You'll like him."

"First name or last name?"

"I don't know," Klein said, suddenly throwing up his hands. "d.a.m.n it, Rogers, I don't know why you expect me to know all of these things about the people on my ship. Why don't you go ask him and get the h.e.l.l out of my hair for an hour or so?"

"IT'S RALPH," Ralph said.

Rogers' hands shot up to his ears, which were now ringing quite loudly. The small, cramped, glorified janitor's closet that made up the entire office s.p.a.ce of the information operations squadron didn't do much to distill the noise of a man shouting at him from his desk.

"I'm right here," Rogers said. "You don't have to shout."

"WHAT?" Ralph shouted, squinting. He hadn't taken his eyes off his computer terminal since Rogers had entered the room. Ralph-Rogers still didn't know if it was his first name, last name, nickname, or what he did after meals-typed furiously away at the oldest keyboard system that Rogers had ever seen. It looked like it actually contained mechanical moving parts, and it made loud clanking noises every time Ralph hit a key. How did the computers even read that kind of technology?

"I'm Lieutenant Rogers, Admiral Klein's executive officer," Rogers said.

"I'M RALPH."

"Yeah," Rogers said, wincing. He should have brought earplugs. "You told me that."

"YOU'RE AN EXECUTIVE OFFICER?" Ralph took a sip of what may have been the largest, most viscous cup of coffee in the galaxy. It took a full three seconds for the liquid to find its way from the side of the cup to Ralph's lips, and Rogers was almost sure that Ralph chewed on it.

"That's what I said."

"I THOUGHT EXECUTIVE OFFICERS WERE THE SECOND-IN-COMMAND."

"No," Rogers said. "That's only for water navy. We're in the s.p.a.ce navy. It's different."

"THAT'S REALLY CONFUSING."

Rogers shrugged. "More confusing than a marine captain being the same rank as a navy lieutenant, but a marine lieutenant being the same rank as a navy ensign?" Rogers laughed, hoping to draw Ralph into his confidence through humor, but Ralph didn't even seem to notice that Rogers had told a joke.

Clearing his throat, Rogers looked around the room, which he wasn't even sure was fit for human occupancy. Dark, ink-stained metal walls framed just enough s.p.a.ce for a small bed, a nightstand, and the computer terminal at which Ralph was currently sitting. A single light bulb dangled from a wire from the ceiling, swaying back and forth. The walls were packed from floor to ceiling with different posters, all of them incomplete. One particular poster appeared to be a blank piece of paper. In general, they seemed to be misprints-one had a picture of a Thelicosan battle cruiser broken in half that had the caption SINK THEIR s.h.i.t underneath it. The adjacent poster had a picture of a toilet that had the caption SINK THEIR SHIP.

"WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU, LIEUTENANT? I DON'T GET MANY VISITORS."

"It's kind of a hard place to find," Rogers said.

In fact, it was nearly impossible to find. It wasn't on any of the schematic maps of the ship, and everyone he asked seemed to know that the 331st had an information operations squadron, but had no idea where it was. As it turned out, he had to use the in-line on the training deck and manually stop it, climb out the hatch, and crawl down a tunnel just to get to the office door.

"I was wondering who commissioned all of these posters," Rogers said. "There are an awful lot of them around the ship." Rogers was secretly scanning the room, looking for anything that might resemble a listening device. It made sense to start looking at the guy making the posters, but every second he hung out in this cramped s.p.a.ce, it seemed less likely that Ralph was the culprit.