“Why?”

“At the Academy—” Rogers began.

“Yes.” McSchmidt blurted, maybe a little too loudly. “The one I definitely went to. To become an officer.”

Rogers blinked. “Yeah. That’s the one. At the Academy, what did you use for basic flight training?”

McSchmidt thought for a moment. “Paper airplanes?”

“Right. Because there’s no money. Because it’s peacetime. Why should it be any different in Thelicosa? We’re not in an arms race or anything. They don’t have the budget to come up with a super-secret stealth device and keep it hidden and install it on an entire fleet of ships and move them to the Meridan border.”

“I guess,” McSchmidt said. “But that still doesn’t explain why we’re seeing them on our scopes.”

“No,” Rogers said. “It doesn’t. I think that maybe—”

“Lurturnurnt Ruggers!”

“Munkle,” Rogers said, turning around, “get back to your post at the public transportation—oh. Hello there, Tunger.”

“Hullur to yurself,” Tunger said. He didn’t look happy. For that matter, neither did McSchmidt, though Rogers didn’t know why. The new intelligence officer eyed Tunger suspiciously, and his hands were balled up into fists at his side.

“I cun buluf you transferred mai to the zeooo deck!”

“I’m not going to admit that I may have almost understood that,” Rogers said, “and I’m instead going to threaten to slap you in the face if you don’t drop that ridiculous accent immediately.”

Tunger looked on the verge of sticking out his tongue. “I can’t believe you transferred me to the zoo deck!”

“Why?” Rogers asked, frowning. “That’s where you came from, isn’t it? You used to talk about how much you missed the chimps and all that. I thought you would want that.”

“But I’m your orderly,” Tunger said. “How am I supposed to help you keep all of your things in order in an orderly fashion if I’m in the zoo deck?”

“I have a new orderly,” Rogers said, wrapping his arm around Deet’s shoulders in what he immediately realized was a very awkward thing to do to a droid. “So, you can go back to doing what you love.”

“I was not given a choice in this matter,” Deet muttered.

“Orderly or trash heap,” Rogers said. “Seems like an easy choice to me.”

“Still,” Deet said. “You never asked.”

Tunger looked at Deet with undisguised revulsion. “But you hate droids!”

Rogers felt his cheeks heating. “That’s not really—”

“You used to say every day how much you hated these ‘god-damn shinies’ and that you wanted to see every one of them melted down to scrap!”

“Now you’re just making stuff up.”

“And that if you ever had to work with another droid, you’d throw yourself out the trash chute without a pressure suit.”

“Now, that’s nearly true,” Deet said.

“Shut up,” Rogers said. “Tunger, I’m a reformed anti-droidist, okay? I found one that doesn’t make me want to strangle myself with my own bootlaces. Besides, what kind of orderly are you, anyway? I haven’t seen you in forever! How are you supposed to be my orderly if you’re not around to keep things in order?”