Part 3 (2/2)

”It's not that simple,” the magistrate said, sitting back down.

”Seems pretty simple to me,” Rogers said. ”Let me out of here or the entire Meridan network will be watching videos of you doing the two-step in a young woman's unmentionables. Come to think of it, you seem to spend a lot of time in various states of nakedness, Tucky. Are you a closet exhibitionist or something?”

Tuckalle scowled at him. ”It's not just a question of simply letting you off the hook. All those records are already uploaded into the central databases. I couldn't remove them all if I wanted to. It's more of a question of authority.”

”Whose?”

”Yours, actually. You have a military record, but you're not in the military anymore. You can't just go roving the galaxy, blowing up pirates-if that was even what you were doing there, which I doubt. So, even if we were to give you a medal and a parade like Officer Atikan said, we'd have to send you to jail for reckless vigilantism.”

Rogers squinted one eye. ”Reckless vigilantism? Did the MPF unionize or something?”

Tucky shrugged. ”I don't make the rules, Rogers.” He paused for a moment. ”But I might be able to do something.”

”And what's that?”

”I could reactivate your military service and backdate the reenlistment to before you went pirating.”

Rogers laughed. ”You want me to put the uniform back on? There are reasons I left, Tucky.”

Those reasons were primarily driven by profit, of course. He wanted to explore and cheat the other populated systems in the galaxy, too. Except the Thelicosa System, of course. They were too good at math.

This was supposed to be his intersystem debut, not his reentry into the boring military! He'd learned enough tricks in the easygoing, post-Peace service to allow him to go big time and do things like, for example, knock over some pirates for what was supposed to be a huge sum of cash. There was no reason to keep running small amounts of contraband when he could . . . well, when he could make a huge mess of things and end up in jail on his way to the salt mines. Maybe this wasn't such a bad idea.

”Besides,” Rogers said, despite his wavering opinion. ”It was getting boring. Those new droids kept popping up and sucking the personality out of everything.” It was also marginally more difficult to smooth-talk a machine.

Tuckalle shook his head. ”That's the best I can do for you. I'll put in the minimum commitment of three years, and once you're done with that, you can go back to whatever it was you were doing. I'll even put you back in the 331st.”

Sitting back in his chair, Rogers folded his arms and chewed his lip while he thought. The peacetime military wasn't really a military as much as it was a giant fraternity. What else were a bunch of people out on a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p in the middle of nowhere supposed to do but drink and gamble and horse around? The Two Hundred Years' (and Counting) Peace had left plenty of room for filling leisure time with interesting activities.

And Rogers had been a powerful prince in a vast kingdom of debauchery. As an engineer, he'd spent most of his time in rooms that officers rarely wanted to go, and as a sergeant, he had just the right amount of clout without all that annoying ”responsibility” that came with being an officer or senior enlisted. What would be so bad about revisiting his old stomping grounds for a while?

”You're sure you could get me back into my old unit?”

”If they don't scuttle the s.h.i.+ps when they find out you're coming back, yes.”

Another stint in the military. It didn't seem so bad. And what was his alternative?

”Tucky,” he said, ”what's the maximum sentence for, ah, reckless vigilantism?”

”Five years,” Tucky said.

Rogers stood up and saluted.

Speedb.u.mps The unnatural smoothness of Un-s.p.a.ce travel came abruptly to an end as the warning lights went off inside the transport shuttle and the normal rules of physics came back into play. Rogers shook his head as his body got used to its own g-forces again and stood up. Out the port-side window of the small, cramped shuttle he could see the 331st Anti-Thelicosan Buffer Group in all of its relatively obscure glory. The s.h.i.+ps, arrayed in a rainbow pattern at the very edge of the Meridan system, looked vigilantly toward Thelicosan territory, awaiting-quite futilely, he was sure-the next attack.

Futile, he thought, for two reasons. One, the attack wasn't coming. The Two Hundred Years' (and Counting) Peace was pretty ironclad, thanks to all the legal treaties and checks-and-balances placed on the several signatories. And two, if the attack did come, it wouldn't matter much. Thelicosa was a powerful human system-most had resettled there from their colony on Mars, which had made all of them pretty rough around the edges-and the 331st wasn't called the ”Speedb.u.mps” for nothing.

At the center of the formation was the aptly-if-uncreatively named MPS Flags.h.i.+p, the control center of the whole group, like a giant flower surrounded by the buzzing insects that were the fighter patrol. Various heavy guns.h.i.+ps, cargo transports, medical s.h.i.+ps, and other specialty craft lay splayed out in s.p.a.ce over the long crescent that made up the 331st. The shuttle in which Rogers was riding made an easy turn, fired up its conventional engines, and zoomed toward the Flags.h.i.+p.

”She's a beaut, isn't she?” Rogers asked the pilot as he leaned in the slightly raised gangway connecting the c.o.c.kpit with the pa.s.senger bay.

”She's a wars.h.i.+p,” came the terse reply. ”Take your seat and fasten your seatbelt, please.”

”Oh, come on,” Rogers said. ”You're docking with a ma.s.sive wars.h.i.+p that has a magnetic hook. I'd create more turbulence by jumping up and down.”

”Please don't jump up and down.”

Rogers stopped jumping up and down and rolled his eyes. The pilot had been like an ice cube since the moment he'd stepped aboard. Pilots in general were always a little screwy, but this was the first he'd met that didn't want to talk your ear off. c.o.c.kpits got lonely.

Not for the first time, Rogers wished he had been able to take his own s.h.i.+p. But the engines needed enough work that he'd have to wait to get to the dry dock on the Flags.h.i.+p to fix them, if they were salvageable at all.

”So, what's the game of choice nowadays in the fleet?” Rogers asked, still standing in the gangway. ”Holo-carving? Gravitational darts? Good old poker?”

”I wouldn't know,” the pilot said. He made a couple of quick corrections on the control panel and spoke some jargon-riddled pilot-speak into the communication system. He received similar gibberish in reply and seemed satisfied. The Flags.h.i.+p took up the whole of the c.o.c.kpit window now, its dull gray surface was.h.i.+ng out the colors of the shuttle's interior.

”You don't play games?”

”Not while I'm on duty.”

”That's the best time!”

The pilot turned and regarded Rogers with something between confusion and contempt. He pointed mutely to the pa.s.senger compartment, and Rogers sighed as he turned around.

”Might as well have a droid as a pilot,” Rogers said under his breath as he sat down and fastened his seatbelt. Crossing his arms, he grumpily looked out the window and watched as the docking bay swallowed the tiny shuttle like a whale swallowed plankton, padded clamps fastening around the hull like baleen. As Rogers had suspected, the whole procedure was as smooth and automated as it had been when he left the military. Seatbelts . . . pfuh.

Speaking of droids, Rogers couldn't help but notice that the docking bay had quite a few of them running around. Almost humanoid, their tin-can bodies moved around on either a wheeled base or a convincing pair of bionic legs with the knee joints reversed to offset their heavy torsos. Some of them wielded welding torches or wrenches, and some others had their data extension cables plugged into consoles operating cranes and various machinery. Rogers had expected to see some of his old engineering troops running around, but there was barely a human in sight.

”d.a.m.n,” Rogers said. ”s.h.i.+nies everywhere.”

The pilot cleared his throat.

”What?”

”I'd thank you not to use that term on my s.h.i.+p,” the pilot said. ”I don't tolerate racism.”

”Racism? They're droids! They don't have a race.”

The pilot made some final adjustments on the control panel, and Rogers felt a rush of air as the pa.s.senger stairway extended down to the docking bay floor.

”Enjoy your stay,” the pilot said coldly.

Shaking his head, Rogers collected his meager belongings-most of his stuff was still on the Awesome and he hadn't been allowed to retrieve it-and made his way down the plank and through the docking bay, carefully avoiding any contact with the droids. Not only did they creep him out a little, but they were boring.

According to Tuckalle, his orders had been transmitted to the Flags.h.i.+p, but he didn't tell Rogers much more than that. The first stop, of course, would be the supply depot. He'd need to be reissued everything from uniforms to hygiene supplies to flashlights and tools for his engineering duties. The supply depot had always been his favorite place; it was where he moved the best contraband and where he had the most friends. Of all the people on the s.h.i.+p he wanted to keep happy the most, the supply clerks were of the highest priority, which is why Rogers never, ever gambled, swindled, or dated any of them.

The manifest technician monitoring personnel entry and exit from the s.h.i.+p wasn't actually a manifest technician at all. It was a droid, plugged into the central computer system via a cable that extended from its torso to the wall, and it held up a s.h.i.+ny steel-alloy arm to indicate that Rogers was to wait.

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