Mechanical Failure Read Online Free Page A

know the answers to. I hope to one day metamorphosize into medical paperwork.”
    The ensign scoffed. “You’re being taken to Magistrate Tuckalle for your trial and sentencing. After that, you’ll probably spend the rest of your life in the salt mines on Parivan if you’re lucky.”
    Rogers shifted uneasily, eyeing the hatch like a poison viper. The name of the magistrate sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t remember where he’d heard it before.
    â€œThat doesn’t sound very fun,” Rogers said.
    The ensign looked mildly offended. “What do you mean? Have you never been to Parivan? It’s a great place. I was born there. That’s why I said if you’re lucky.”
    â€œI guess you’re a real salty sailor, then, aren’t you?”
    â€œThat joke,” the ensign said, “was in very poor taste .” He raised his eyebrows up and down rapidly, grinning like a fool.
    â€œPlease stop talking.”
    â€œAnyway, I was only saying that you’d spend the rest of your lifethere because it’s got great real estate prospects. Once you’re done with your community service, you’ll probably want to stay.”
    Rogers frowned. That didn’t make any sense. Were they charging him with the theft of a Meridan ship or weren’t they?
    â€œCommunity service?” Rogers asked. “Not jail time? What kind of war crime are you charging me with?”
    â€œWar crime?” The ensign looked genuinely confused. “What are you talking about? We’re not at war. Yet, anyway. We picked you up for littering.”
    â€œWait . . . Littering ? You mean you didn’t arrest me for . . .” Rogers swallowed what would have been an astronomically stupid confession. “You mean that’s it?
    â€œWell, sure,” the ensign said. “You dropped a cargo crate in the middle of open space, then blew it up. We try to keep a clean system around here, you know. You can’t just go dropping your garbage wherever you feel like it, even if it was in the middle of that refuse heap.”
    He must have been talking about the debris from the space battle. It certainly had looked like a garbage dump by the time the MPS Lumos had shown up.
    â€œBut if it was a refuse heap,” Rogers said carefully, “what’s the problem?”
    The ensign grabbed a datapad from the docking tech’s workstation and tapped on what was presumably the report about Rogers’ arrest.
    â€œNo permit,” he said. “Can’t dump without a permit.”
    Rogers’ heart settled down a little bit. This would be a piece of cake, if a little inconvenient. For him, getting out of a littering fine was as easy as pulling the “got your nose” trick on a marine private first class.
    â€œWe’re all set, sir,” the technician said. “Opening the hatch.”
    The hatch to the bridgeway opened, revealing a short corridor with no windows to give Rogers any idea of where exactly he was being transferred. Three days of traveling could have putthem almost anywhere in the system, but that was assuming that the Lumos had made a straight line. They could have finished a patrol route before bringing him to this outpost, or, more likely, they had spent three days doing beer runs and making sure the ship was fully stocked with their favorite snack foods. That was what Rogers would have done, anyway.
    Regardless, they were clearly still in free space; Rogers hadn’t heard anything about making a landing planetside, nor had he felt the jolting atmospheric impacts that always used to make him clutch the nearest piece of furniture.
    A pair of mean-faced Meridan Marines stood on the other end of the hatch. marines didn’t bother him so much—they were some of the best drinking buddies in the galaxy—but he couldn’t say the same for the loaded disruptor rifles they had at the ready. One of