The door slid open, and Rogers was treated to an opulent scene. Where Rogers’ room was luxurious—albeit floating—the admiral’s room bordered on ridiculous. It appeared as though Rogers had stepped into a palace on the lavish colonies of old Saturn, complete with marble floors, ornately detailed columns, and narrow swaths of soft, velvety carpet making walkways between the various spots in the room. Rogers wondered if the room’s architect had come from Grandelle, the system where all the gaudy Saturnites had relocated post-collapse. Every piece of furniture, every piece of command paraphernalia and memorabilia cried out, “Leadership.” “Power.” “Authority.”

Literally. There were actual pieces of décor that said those words in giant, bold letters. In fact, it was like the whole room was filled with military magnetic poetry. Everything was made from dark wood or gleaming bronze. Thick, bulky memorabilia from Klein’s other assignments before being transferred to command the 331st were on glass shelves, each of which had their own spotlight like some kind of art museum. Rogers felt a little bit like he’d stepped out of a command ship and into some sort of shrine.

“It’s about damn time,” Klein said from behind a massive thick desk. He looked more like a king on a throne than the commander of a fleet, entirely different from the impression of him on the bridge.

“Sir, you said two hours,” Rogers said defensively as he made his way through the spotless room toward the admiral’s desk. He felt his knees shaking. “I wasn’t able to complete my review of everything. There were a lot of orders that—”

“I didn’t tell you to review the orders,” Klein said. “I told you to approve them. How am I supposed to get anything done on this ship at all if I have to review orders all day?”

You don’t, Rogers thought. You told me to do it instead.

“Some of them were pretty important,” Rogers said, “like complaints about strange things going on with the communications array and—”

“I don’t like repeating myself, Lieutenant,” Klein said. He was wearing a somewhat anachronistic pair of half-moon reading glasses and scribbling away on paper, and had yet to look Rogers in the eye. “I’m trying to keep everyone happy. When they ask me for things, I approve them. That’s all. That’s the goal of command.”

Rogers frowned. “I’m a little behind on my officer professional education,” Rogers said, “but is that really the goal of command?”

Klein finally looked up, the slightest raising of his eyes to give Rogers a “you’re walking on thin ice” look. “Didn’t I just say something about repeating myself ? That’s the goal of my command, and in case you haven’t noticed, this is my ship. Now, if you’re not done doing the simple task I asked of you, you can finish after you make me a sandwich. I have things to do.”

The admiral patted a book on the table with a sort of motherly affection, and Rogers noticed for the first time just how many books were lying around. The one Klein had under his hand was a notebook, in which was a whole mass of insane scribbling. At the bottom, Rogers saw a couple of words upside down and bold.