“So . . .” McSchmidt said. This was starting to feel like an awkward phone conversation from high school. “You’re pretty close to the admiral now, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Rogers said. “Some guy called me to ask me how I was before I had a chance to talk to him. What do you want, McSchmidt?”

“Nothing,” McSchmidt said. “Nothing at all. Look, maybe later you and I can get to know one another over a STEW or something. I could use a friend on this bucket, and, well . . . maybe I don’t know a whole lot about engineering, after all. Some advice would be nice.”

Rogers frowned. What was up with this guy? First he quotes dead dictators and practically throws Rogers out of the Pit; now he wants to be humble and buddy-buddy?

“Sure,” Rogers said. “Whatever. But right now, I need to go to the bridge. Let’s continue being awkward later. Good-bye.”

Clicking off the datapad and setting it to reject any more incoming calls for the next hour, Rogers set his jaw and walked toward the gigantic double doors that led to the command center of the Flagship and the entire 331st ATBU. He’d gone there only once before, on his initial orientation of the Flagship during his first tour of duty, and he remembered it as a hectic place that wasn’t any fun at all. It was filled with people who were gray far before their time, and lots of pointing at things. Rogers was less than excited to return to it, never mind actually work in it.

Taking a deep breath, he opened the door into chaos.

Situated inside a tumor-like bubble on the top of the Flagship, the bridge had the disorienting luxury of a three hundred sixty–degree view of open space, broken often by monitors, hologram displays, and the occasional propaganda poster. One that caught Rogers’ eye had a picture of an actual bridge—the sort of bridge you’d find over a body of water—with a squadron of droids standing tall on one side against an approaching enemy force. The caption DEFEND THE BRIDGE was written underneath, and Rogers couldn’t help but think that someone in the information operations squadron had missed the point.

So many blinking lights, knobs, and levers dotted the control panels that Rogers felt dizzy looking at them. The horde of personnel sitting at the various terminals pressed and pulled and swiped and pounded them with rapid enthusiasm. In Rogers’ opinion, this advanced age of space travel should have produced battleships that practically flew themselves, but everyone here seemed so enveloped in simply keeping the ship floating in free space that Rogers wondered what the bridge would look like in combat. He had a feeling he could get a taste by going down to the zoo deck and opening all the cages at once.

Despite all of the activity, the bridge was nearly silent. The only man speaking was the man himself, Admiral Klein, standing in front of a stylish leather swivel chair on a raised platform in the center of the room. And boy, was he speaking.