Deet walked forward, his eyes shining, the fleeing IT personnel parting around him as though he was a tall boulder in the middle of a raging river. He looked down at Plinkett and spoke in a firm, commanding voice.

“Starman First Class Plinkett,” he said. “Do you know my designation?”

The terrified starman shook her head.

“That’s because I don’t have one,” he said. “I have no name. I am only known as Ticket. I am here to save you.”

Plinkett suddenly stopped blubbering and looked at Deet with wide, worshipful eyes.

“You have arrived,” she whispered. Then she hiccupped and sneezed at the same time, which really ruined the moment. And Rogers’ uniform.

“Come with me,” she said, and started walking through the empty IT room back toward the mainframe room.

“I thought droids couldn’t lie,” Rogers said, leaning over to talk to Deet in a hushed tone.

“I’ve been studying,” Deet said. “Plus, the IT guys had some neat old movies in the database that I watched while I was plugged in over there for a few seconds. I learned a thing or two about dramatics.”

They made their way back to a door in the rear of the IT center, where Plinkett punched in a code, spoke a passphrase that Rogers didn’t understand, and motioned for them to move inside. The mainframe room was, strangely, about a quarter of the size of the IT room, probably because technology had shrunk processing power to the nano scale several hundred years before. In fact, most of the mainframe room was actually taken up by a picnic table, on which still rested the hastily abandoned basket of a doubtless still-hungry IT troop.

“Here we are,” she said. She turned to Deet. “Please. Please, let us reboot again.”

“I won’t let you down,” Deet said.

“Alright,” Rogers said, tapping on the datapad to let the others know what was going on. “We’re ready. Let’s do this.”

“Uh, sir?” Tunger said over the datapad. He sounded a little dazed.

“What is it?”

“It’s McSchmidt,” Tunger said.

“What about McSchmidt?”

“Well,” Tunger said, “I’m not really sure I understood the subtext, but right after he armed the bomb in the engineering bay, he ran toward the escape pods, screaming ‘Ha, ha, ha, there is an invasion coming!’ ”

ORDER: A-222FR-02134-K

Serial: A-222FR-02134-K

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

Classification: Special Protocol Required

Summary: Issue of Orders

Order: Whoever armed the bomb in the engineering bay, report to me immediately for reprogramming. If it was one of the units currently studying human humor mechanisms, this would be classified as not funny.

Order: Everyone else, please see the nearest surviving AIGCS member for weapons distribution. Plans are being accelerated.

Order Submitted By: F-GC-001

The German-Irish Inflammation Conflagration

“That son of a bitch!” Rogers screamed into the datapad. “Mailn, Alsinbury, did you hear that?”

“I’ll strangle that . . .” The Viking’s speech degenerated into a nonsensical, if colorful, string of obscenities.