Dorsey. Horror vids couldn’t describe the litany of physical violence Rogers would hire someone else to inflict on him.

The instrument panel gave him another warning about the life support systems, and he almost threw the long-since-empty bottle of Jasker 120 at it. He would have, actually, had he not already done so two days before and missed completely, putting a dent in the storage locker that held the rest of his bottles of Jasker 120 and rendering it unopenable. He’d never had very good aim.

When the panel beeped again, he thought he was going to pry it open with his fingers and start ripping out wires. But the sound was different. It was the sound he’d heard right before the Rancor had come out of Un-Space and started this whole idiotic escapade.

Moments later, a hole opened at the Un-Space point, and two ships popped out like the pus from a black pimple. Two MPF ships.

“Attention, Awesome—wait, is that really the name of this ship?”

Rogers flicked the comms switch and responded in a hoarse, tired whisper.

“Yes.”

The name on the registry was sort of a happy accident; Rogers had been messing around with ideas and had typed “I am awesome” into the terminal. He’d accidentally hit return, and the name stuck. Right now, though, he didn’t feel very awesome.

He heard muffled laughter over the radio. “Attention, Awesome. You, your crew, and your ship are subject to seizure under Code 9 of the Meridan Laws of Free Space. You will power down your engines and prepare to be boarded. Any resistance will be treated as authorization for the use of deadly force.”

“My engines are disabled,” Rogers replied. “I can’t power them down.”

“Well, at least flip the switch,” the Meridan ship responded. “We have protocol.”

Rogers reached forward and flipped the switch, then flipped the bird. He hated protocol. But not nearly as much as he hated dying from asphyxiation.

Second Chances

The brig of the Meridan Patrol Ship Lumos wasn’t exactly a palace, but it could have been much worse. A relatively comfortable bed, a fresh change of clothes—something that Rogers greatly appreciated after spending all that time floating around in the Awesome—and three meals every standard day. Even if those meals were actually Standard Edible Wartime Relief (STEW) meals, which were really more like protein cardboard than anything else, they were still food.

Rogers couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten a STEW ration—or SEWR rats, as anyone who ever actually ate them called them. When he’d asked the guard for a martini and filet mignon, however, Rogers had been laughed at, which didn’t make any sense. Rogers never joked about filet mignon.

But now that he was standing at the docking hatch, ready to be transferred, Rogers wasn’t thinking very much about any kind of food.

A young officer, by the look of him and the rank on his epaulet, chatted affably with him as they waited for the docking technician to finish checking the systems.