Despite his abject misery, Rogers couldn’t keep his nerves down. Working for Klein wasn’t like working in the engineering bay. The man was charismatic, wise, tactically minded, and rumored to be ruthless in combat. Although Rogers couldn’t imagine what combat he’d been in unless the admiral was over Two Hundred Years (and Counting) old. There would be no shirking his duties. No drinking. No gambling. Not that there was any of that on the Flagship nowadays, anyway. But at least before being transferred, there had been hope.

The car arrived at the command deck, and everyone aboard piled out into the utter chaos of the corridors. Unlike many of the other areas on the ship, the command deck was packed with officers and high-ranking enlisted, all hurrying through the hallways with their datapads held in front of them like weapons that generated bullshit and sprayed it all over the fleet. It was like he could feel the weight of minutiae and meaningless queep bearing down on him, a hyperbaric chamber of regulations and memoranda.

He thought he might vomit from it as Tunger led the way toward the exec’s quarters, but Rogers barely had time to do anything except exchange salutes with the enlisted and higher-ranking officers passing by. In fact, he saw that everyone was carrying the aforementioned datapads in their left hands, because their right hands were almost constantly slapping themselves in the foreheads as nearly everyone they passed required a salute. This custom was mostly ignored everywhere else in the fleet except for ceremonial purposes. Why not here?

“Shit,” Rogers said as he shook his arm out during the brief intervening moments between a sergeant and two lieutenant commanders, “how the hell does anyone get anything done around here if they’re so busy saluting all the time?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Tunger said, offering Rogers a salute.

“Stop that!”

“Yes, sir,” Tunger replied, snapping him another.

By the time they reached the large oval intersection that led to the bridge, the war room, Klein’s quarters, and Rogers’ new room, Rogers felt like his arm was going to deflate and fall off. Sweat trickled down his back; even Tunger was breathing harder with the effort.

“Quick,” Rogers said. “Open the door and let’s get inside before someone invents a double-handed salute and we get in real trouble.”

“Yes, sir,” Tunger said. He retrieved a pair of keycards from his pocket and handed one to Rogers. “This is to replace the one you lost.”

“I nearly forgot about that. What happened to it?”

“They found it permanently attached to the side of the command pad. Apparently, even after you lost consciousness, you kept trying to unlock the pad with it, and eventually, the friction caused it to melt.”

For some reason, Rogers counted that as a victory. He tucked the keycard away in the holster that also held his new personal datapad, and allowed the insistent Tunger to open the door for him.

“Aie prusunt to yeou . . .” He cleared his throat. “I present to you your new quarters, Lieutenant Rogers.”