But Rogers wasn’t thinking about that. Rogers was staring at the back of the Viking, watching her impose her will on the marines, and feeling a little bit like a cat in heat.

She turned around and looked at him, clearly fighting off a smile. “Not bad, right?”

Rogers found it very difficult to continue speaking while looking at her, so he looked away instead.

“Anyway, Deet, you were telling us about protocol 162 and them having limited authority to, you know, kill us.”

“That’s about right,” Deet said.

“So, what do we do about it?” Mailn asked, putting her hands on her hips. Leave it to a marine to not look disturbed at all that she was potentially within a few seconds of dying at any given moment. The Viking looked similarly unimpressed. Rogers wished he shared this nonchalance about his own mortality.

“Can we do anything about it?” Rogers asked. “There are shinies—”

“Hey,” Deet said.

“—all over the damn ship. They’ve weaseled their way into every squadron, even tried to come up with their own squadron and give themselves weapons. The first chance they get, they’re going to blow a hole in the Flagship and probably kill us all. What are we supposed to do with that?”

They all thought for a moment. Rogers felt sweat rolling down the inside of his uniform.

“What about Klein?” Tunger said. “He’s a military genius. He’d know what to do.”

Rogers bit his tongue before telling them all that their military idol was just a talking head.

“That wouldn’t work,” he said instead. “Remember, there are listening devices all over his room, and they’re obviously tapped into the network. Any orders that Klein issued, they’d either countermand or delete. And then, you know, they might blow a hole in the ship.” Rogers made an explosive hand gesture. “I feel like we keep forgetting that part, guys.”

The overhead system dinged again.

“Next strp, zrm dk. Exit on your rfltght.”

“I don’t even know what deck that is,” Tunger said.

Someone must have hit the call button on the . . . zrm deck. After a moment, the doors slid open to reveal the exterior of the zoo deck, where a couple of off-duty troops wearing safari hats were talking excitedly about their most recent animal adventure.

“No,” the Viking said simply, stepping forward.

The troops blinked, took a step back, and scattered like spit in a sneeze. The door closed, and the Viking turned around, grinning.

“Maybe I should be the new elevator operator,” the Viking said.

“This is an unlikely possibility,” Deet said. “As already mentioned, there is a lack of the appropriate hats.”

The Viking looked at Deet. “I’m pretty sure I could bend you into some kind of hat.”

“No,” Rogers said. “Not now, anyway. If we’re going to do something about this, we’re going to have to keep it quiet.”

“Sure you don’t just want to jump in an escape pod and head for open space?” Mailn asked, looking at him with narrow eyes.