Rogers opened his mouth to argue, then recalled some metaphor about pissing into a stern wind. He thought it might have gone something like “WHEN YOU URINATE INTO A BREEZE, IT COMES BACK AND HITS YOU IN THE FACE, AND THAT’S BAD.”

While rolling his eyes so hard, he thought they might fall out, Rogers noticed a tall metallic cylinder in the corner of the room with a small red light on it. It took him a moment, but he recognized it as an old coffee maker, which made sense, since he didn’t get the impression that Ralph left this room very often. Where did he go to the bathroom or shower? Rogers sniffed the air. Did he shower?

“So, you get to make your own coffee, eh?” Rogers said amicably, sidling over to where the large cylinder was mounted to the wall.

“NOT JUST COFFEE,” Ralph said. “COFFEE AND PULVERIZED SEWER RATS. KEEPS ME WORKING LONGER.”

Rogers nodded slowly. “Right. Say, have you ever heard of zip jack?”

“NO. IS HE AN ASTEROID RACER?”

“Yep,” Rogers said as he closed the lid of the coffee-Sewer-Rat-amalgamator, which was possibly the single most disgusting thing he’d ever heard of in his entire life. “The fastest asteroid racer in the galaxy. He’ll take you right over the moon if you let him.”

“WHICH MOON?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rogers said. “It was great meeting you, Ralph. Keep up the good work.”

Report: C-7FG-2923-X

Serial: C-7FG-2923-X

Distribution: DBS//DSS//DAK//DFR//BB//CLOSED NETWORK A66

Classification: Special Protocol Required

Summary: List of personnel transfers enacted by Human 2552 and Human 2301.

Details: A number of personnel transfers have been enacted in the last two standard days. While the signatory of the orders appears to be Human 2301, information received through surveillance has revealed that Human 2301 is being directly influenced and possibly manipulated by Human 2552, whom we previously assessed as being of minimal cognitive capacity.

Details: A list of the personnel transfers is reproduced below.

Human 8853 (McSchmidt) has been transferred to intelligence.

Human 0609 (Munkle) has been transferred to public transportation.

Human 9994 (Tunger) has been transferred to the zoo deck.

Human 2002 (Hart) has been transferred to engineering.

Human 1050 (Suresh) has been transferred to the zoo deck.

Human 5665 (Stract) has been transferred to sanitation services, demoted to starman second class, and has had his clipboard confiscated.

Assessment: Human 2552 must be kept under careful observation.

Report Submitted By: F-GC-001

Big Red Data

The briefing screen was swathed in red. Red all over the place. The whole room was utterly silent; even Klein had stopped drafting a pep talk to stare at the screen that appeared to be bleeding Thelicosan ships.

“Much better with color,” Klein said agreeably, nodding his head before going back to writing.

What only yesterday had been a benign formation of Thelicosan battleships had transformed into something ready to charge right into Meridan space and blast everything it could find. There also seemed to be about twice as many ships as there had been the day before, and they’d moved in some of their Striker craft, high-speed cruisers designed to reach out and disable sensors to blind the enemy quickly before a follow-on force.