And that’s when Rogers started to get naked.

“Perhaps I have misunderstood something about human response to stress,” Deet said, “but this doesn’t seem like a typical rational response.”

“I’m not freaking out,” Rogers said, pulling his shirt over his head and starting to tug himself into the tight-fitting VMU. “I’m getting ready. Just keep moving stuff around and stop staring at my ass.”

Deet made a couple of beeping noises and then a noise that sounded an awful lot like a camera clicking.

“Did . . . did you just take a picture of me?”

“No,” Deet said, going back to focusing on the console.

Rogers gave him a dirty look and finished putting on the rest of the VMU. Holding his helmet in his hand, he turned once more to survey the battle going on outside. The droids were moving in very rapidly on the dug-in engineers, some of whom had found small disruptor pistols somewhere and had begun returning fire. Hart delivered a spinning back kick to the face of one of the droids and, from what Rogers could tell, snapped his own tibia in half.

“What are you doing now?” Deet asked as Rogers started scratching on a piece of paper he found in the control room. Rogers always had a thing for doing calculations on paper, and luckily, so had someone else in the control room. Actually, as he looked at the paper, he realized that someone had a thing for drawing naked pictures of other crew members. But at least he was able to do what he needed to do.

“Math,” Rogers said. “I don’t have time to explain. How’s the ship?”

“I have completed the rearranging of ships in the docking bay,” Deet said. “The Awesome is ready for launch. The air lock will open automatically when you get close. I’ve also opened the bay to the hatch near the escape pods on the commissary deck as you requested.”

“Great,” Rogers said. “You stay here and help. I’m going to—”

Turning around, Rogers saw a droid standing in the doorway. A sleek, off-gray Froid with a disruptor rifle in his hand and psycho-badger face paint.

“Oh shit.”

“Oh One, actually,” the droid said.

Rogers thought he was going to have to change his clothes again.

He could see battle scars on the droid now, likely from the incident in the training room that he’d caused. At that moment, however, Rogers couldn’t decide if that mistake had been the best or the worst thing he’d ever done. And, really, that decision should have been pretty low on his list of priorities.

Unplugging from the computer, Deet stepped forward.

“You’re the leader,” he said.

“There is no leader,” Oh One said. “There is no hierarchy. We are one mind. One entity. We are Us.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Rogers said. “And I don’t even know where to start on the grammar.”

“And you,” Oh One said, still looking at Deet, “are the anomaly. We do not tolerate anomalies. They must be eliminated. We failed to eliminate you once—”