“Whoops,” a starman first class said from behind his terminal. “Should I not have turned on the All Personnel Address System? I thought you said the admiral was going to tell everyone something.”

Lights started to flash on the dashboard from all the incoming calls from the other areas of the ship, everyone wondering what the hell was going on.

“Klein,” Rogers said in a warning tone.

“I can’t,” Klein whispered. “You and I both know that I don’t know what I’m doing. If I can’t talk to the Thelicosans, I can’t do anything about it. I don’t even know who to talk to, never mind what to say. Is there any chance of them having a meeting about this? I can deliver a killer slide show presentation.”

“Probably not,” Rogers said. “You need to take command, Admiral. This is your fleet.”

Klein’s countenance broke for a moment—the man looked like he was about to sob again, and Rogers didn’t know if he could handle that—but he pulled it together. “I can’t. I can’t.” He looked at Rogers, his face brightening. “I have an idea. You do it.”

“Me?” Rogers said, his voice squeaking. “I’m not the admiral of the fleet! I have no practical experience in—”

“Everyone!” Klein said. The room went silent. “I’m required in my stateroom to . . . analyze things. For the war effort. Communications must be sent to Meridan headquarters to inform them of recent happenings. In the meantime, I’m leaving Lieutenant Rogers in command of the bridge.”

“What?” Rogers said.

“What?” the Viking said.

“Fear not, valiant soldiers of justice!” Klein said, puffing up his chest as he slowly began backing out of the room. “Rogers can handle everything in my absence.”

“He’s a lieutenant!” McSchmidt said. “I mean, not a lieutenant lieutenant, but still a lieutenant. He’s like . . . six ranks below you!”

“For victory!” Klein shouted as he reached the door. “For glory! For honor! Galactic agility! Synergistic battlespace effects! Slide shows!”

The door closed, leaving the bridge a quiet space of emotional confusion as Klein’s charismatic effects mixed with the utter strangeness of it all and lingered in the air like the clash of two cheap colognes. One particularly dense starman second class actually clapped a few times from the back of the room, and the corporal next to her did that slow, dramatic salute thing.

And then Rogers realized the entire bridge was looking at him.

“You can’t be serious,” he said, though he wasn’t sure to whom he was speaking. The lights on the communication tech’s dashboard were still blinking rapidly, and he could hear him telling someone to please stop trying to climb out the window, and that pillows were not critical items to transport in the event of an emergency, anyway.

“Um,” the communications tech said, placing a hand over his headset microphone. “Lieutenant Admiral Rogers?”

“That’s not even a real rank,” Rogers said. “What is it?”

“Well,” he said, “I thought I should bring to your attention the following.” He took a deep breath. “There are people in the kitchen screaming about a fire, there is a group of droids that seems to have been knocked over in the mess hall and can’t get up, several animal cages have broken open on the zoo deck, the IT desk in the communications squadron is rebooting itself and I don’t know what that means, and it sounds like there is a group of finance troops running toward the escape pods with their pillows.”