“He’ll be up in a minute,” Rogers told Klein as he stepped back up on the command platform and looked out into open space. He imagined that open space suddenly filling with Thelicosan battleships, and he couldn’t stop the butterflies 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 space 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.