“I don’t go to those.” Klein dabbed gingerly at the corner of his mouth with a napkin.

“Yes,” Rogers said, “you do. You’re the commander of the fleet.”

Klein gave a drawn-out, exaggerated sigh. “But they’re so extraordinarily boring. And I don’t understand anything that goes on in them. It takes away valuable speech-writing time, and I can’t afford it. I need to focus all of my attention on keeping everyone happy or the whole fleet will slip away from me.”

Rogers handed the admiral his datapad. “I think we’re going to have to rework your priorities a little bit. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

With almost petulant reluctance, Klein stood up, straightened his uniform, took his datapad, and marched toward the door of the stateroom. Deet, who had been waiting patiently, made a few computation noises and followed them out into the command deck.

Klein immediately began saluting everyone that walked past, and Rogers quickly slipped on his sling.

“What’s wrong with your arm, Rogers?” the admiral asked, saluting so quickly that he tore a small hole in the elbow of his uniform. Rogers would have to fix it later.

“My arm has agoraphobia,” Rogers said. “When there’s a lot of people around, or lots of noise, or I’m feeling lazy, it stops working.”

Klein shot him a look over his shoulder, and it actually sent a tinge of fear through Rogers. Even the admiral’s facial expressions seemed to change when he was in public. How did this man do it?

“That’s a real thing?”

“As real as space bugs, sir.”

Klein shuddered. “I hate space bugs.”

Rogers covered a snicker and opened the door to the bridge, immediately after which someone shouted:

“Admiral on the bridge! A-TEN-HOOAH!”

“At ease, valiant troops of the Meridan Patrol Fleet!” Klein bellowed. You could see every back straighten, every stare take on a glint of steely determination. Rogers wanted to poke them all in the eyes.

Until, that is, he saw the Viking, standing with her tree-trunk arms folded over on one side of the bridge. Corporal Mailn was with her; neither of them looked particularly happy to see Rogers at all. A brief, cowardly, self-interested impulse—also known as his typical inner monologue—wondered if they had told anyone about his escape attempt.

Before he realized what he was doing, he was waggling his fingers in a wave at the Viking. The look of hatred on her face deepened into something that might soon result in her diving across the helmsman’s console and wringing Rogers’ neck. At least then she’d be close to him.

Mailn, on the other hand, shook her head, pointed at Rogers, and mouthed something.

“Win eat do dog?” Rogers asked out loud, squinting.

“We need to talk, you moron,” she shouted back at him. At the sound of her own voice, she cleared her throat and turned a little red. “Later. Sorry, Admiral.”

Klein didn’t seem to notice or care. “Lieutenant Lieutenant Munkle,” he said as he sat down in the large chair in the center of the room. He gestured to a nervous-looking young officer who waited patiently beside a fully expanded viewscreen, the contents of which currently looked like static. “What do you have for me today?”