“Are we still on compliments or have we moved to insults?”

“You made that unit a disgrace!” Tucky’s face reddened. “And you ruined my career!”

Rogers reeled. “What do you mean, I ruined your career? You were a military officer! Your only career was sipping brandy and relaxing in the Two Hundred Years’ (and Counting) Peace! Come on, Tucky, you know better than anyone what the military is like.”

“Don’t play dumb with me,” Tucky said.

Rogers frowned, thinking hard. What had he ever done to Tucky to upset him? Surely he couldn’t still be hung up on . . .

“Yes, I’m still hung up on it. I spent three hours wandering the halls in my underwear, looking for my uniforms!”

Rogers guffawed, the memory coming back to him of the colonel’s pink flesh as he padded through the hallways shouting at the top of his lungs. That had been a good day.

“That wasn’t my fault,” Rogers said, and for once, he wasn’t lying. “The laundry clerk lost them all.”

“Like hell he did,” Tucky snapped. “That prank had your name written all over it.”

“I told you, it wasn’t me. And you could have used the comm system to call someone to get them for you rather than running around the halls, screaming like a banshee.”

Tucky’s eyes narrowed. “My comm system wasn’t working, and I had a briefing with Admiral Klein in twenty minutes.”

Well, that had been Rogers’ fault. Even though the laundry clerk had been the one to lose the uniforms, he’d told Rogers about it. Rogers just helped the scene along a little by meddling with the communication system. It had been just too good of an opportunity to pass up.

“You can’t blame me for your busy briefing schedule,” Rogers said. “Besides, nothing bad came of it.”

“Nothing bad came of it?” Tucky spluttered, red faced. “They played the security vids over the mess hall display during dinnertime!”

That, actually, had also been Rogers’ fault. Maybe he did ruin the colonel’s career a little bit.

“But who deleted them afterward?” Rogers said. “Who did you come crawling to for that?”

Tucky waved the mitigation away with his hand. “The damage was already done, and you know it. And now that you’re here, I’m going to see that you’re repaid for every swindle, every dirty bet, every underhanded dealing you did in the 331st. It’s time you got what you deserved.”

Rogers ground his teeth, thinking. Tucky’s word was iron in this situation. Even if he did get a fair trial—which he doubted he would, if Tucky was approving the jury—the magistrate had some discretion when it came to dealing with people in his jurisdiction. And, with them being on the outskirts of Meridan territory, Rogers was a long way from the central federation. By the time he ran through all the appeals processes, he’d have served out half his sentence, and his tongue would probably be swollen from all the salt.

Rogers was, in a word, screwed.