“Powerful stuff ?” Rogers asked. “What kind of powerful stuff ? Why would anyone come in here and say powerful stuff ?”

“Oh, you know,” Mailn said. “Just the standard stuff about devotion to duty and tireless perseverance in the face of adversity.” She scrunched up her face. “Come to think of it, I can’t really remember most of it. But I know it was powerful stuff.”

“Hang on a second,” Rogers said, now even more confused. “Devotion to duty? I blew up the AIGCS!”

“Not according to Klein,” Mailn said. “Or anyone else that kept walking in here looking for interviews.”

“Interviews?”

“You discovered a potentially catastrophic bug in the AIGCS system,” Mailn said. “Without you, those shinies might have gone straight into combat and blown everyone around them to pieces. You proved that they weren’t ready for deployment. You saved the Flagship, Rogers.”

A torrent of emotions washed through Rogers. First was relief; the AIGCS was gone. That meant he didn’t have to be in command of them anymore. Second was confusion; if there was no more AIGCS, where was he going to go? Third was terror; he’d been highlighted as the savior of the fleet, people had come to interview him, and Klein himself had made a personal appearance. That could only mean one thing.

“Oh my god,” Rogers said. “I’m being promoted.”

Mailn saluted, grinning. “Hi there, Lieutenant!”

Rogers could feel his common sense withering away that very moment. Not just an ensign, the scrappy puppy dog of whom not much was expected, but something rapidly approaching a field grade officer, the point at which all men of reasonable intelligence had a full frontal lobotomy and were awarded commands of large units.

“Wait,” Rogers said. “Lieutenant? Not Lieutenant Lieutenant? Just Lieutenant?”^I

“Nope,” Mailn said. “You skipped Lieutenant Lieutenant and went straight to Lieutenant.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Rogers said. “You can’t just become a Lieutenant without being a Lieutenant Lieutenant first.”

“Lieutenant Lieutenant was deemed too low of a promotion.”

“So, just Lieutenant?”

“Yep.”

“Not Lieutenant Lieutenant?”

“Nope.”

“Oh my god,” Rogers said. “I’m being promoted twice.”

Mailn plopped down in the only chair in the room, relaxing. “Pretty impressive if you ask me. And, I’ll tell you something else: the Viking certainly hates you a lot less than she did a few days ago.”

Rogers perked up. “Really?”

“Really. I heard her say something to the effect of ‘maybe that little shit isn’t absolutely worthless after all’ after she heard about the AIGCS being disbanded. Trust me, that’s high praise.”

Rogers felt his heart flutter a little bit. Maybe this wasn’t so bad. By being promoted to lieutenant in the Meridan Navy, he was technically the same rank as the Viking now—her being a captain in the Meridan Marines—which might mean she’d pay a little more attention to him. And he’d accidentally removed a major obstacle to their romance. Without being in charge of a bunch of droids that were taking the Viking’s job away from her, she would have far less reason to hate his guts or abuse him without his permission/encouragement. He could see her now, breaking down that door and lifting flaming debris off of him before carrying him off into the sunset aback a tall black stallion.