Protocol design and how to simply pass "CC+/-980002"

[CrazyCarl]

hey all,

something i've been working on a while here .. as of last night I've
broken down into the binary level :D

SO with my new found knowledge of bits and bytes .. im wondering about
getting information across the threshold

so to the protocol:
--------------------------------------------------------------
"CC+/-980002"

where CC .. is the selector for the stepper

+/- is the sign for the rotation direction

and the 980002 are the # of steps i want to spin the motor
--------------------------------------------------------------

SO

with the knowledge that you guys have of these low level workings ...

is my best option an two byte protocol one being a "twos compliment"?

and are these easily encoded back into usable integers for spinning
motors