In the haze of pain, delirium, and oxytocin, that image of her walking away quickly morphed into a vision of himself sitting trapped inside a burning building, totally helpless with a beam of wood crushing his leg. The heat of the intense flames lapped at him like a reckless tongue searching for a gulp of water. And then, suddenly, the captain was there, kicking down the door with those big boots.

“You came!” he said. “You came!”

She lifted the beam of wood off his injured leg as though picking a wayward twig from the fabric of her clothing and scooped him up into the secure bulk of her arms.

“Hold on to your hat,” she said. “We’re getting out of here.”

Rogers didn’t know if it was the heat of the flames, but he felt like melting.

“I knew it,” he said. “I knew it . . .”

“If you knew it,” came a voice from somewhere outside of this delicious fantasy, “why didn’t you duck?”

The real world snapped into focus, only to start to spin again a few moments later. Rogers re-ate a SEWR rat and blinked tears from his eyes. In front of him crouched a female corporal who couldn’t have left her early twenties behind her yet. A pair of crystalline blue eyes ringed with amusement looked at him with nothing at all approaching concern. Her name tag said Mailn, and her uniform showed her as a marine.

“I see you’ve met the captain,” she said. “What did you do to piss her off ?”

Rogers groaned, feeling some of his faculties returning to him. “They put me in charge of the ground combat droids.”

“Oh, you’re the new ensign she’s been going on about,” the corporal said. “She’s been looking for a picture of you to throw darts at for half a week now. You picked the wrong position, buddy. Ah, sir.”

The corporal stood up and saluted, and Rogers waved it away.

“Please don’t do that,” he said. “Rogers is fine.” He held out a hand, forcing the corporal to bend down to shake it.

“Cynthia Mailn,” she said. “marines. The Viking is my CO.”

“Who?”

“Captain Alsinbury. The lady who just put that fist-shaped impression on your forehead.”

The Viking. Perfect.

Grasping the corporal’s hand after their handshake, Rogers accepted the steady help of the fit young woman. Once standing, he noticed that she was quite petite, an inch shorter than Rogers, who wasn’t exactly a tall glass of water to begin with.

“I have to ask, corporal,” he said, “what’s with this ship?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I didn’t leave the military that long ago. When I was in service, things were . . . different, that’s all. Things were looser. Not as many droids. You know.”

Mailn shrugged. “Lots of new faces around the Speedbumps in general, I guess,” she said. “I’ve only been here a little over six months. They moved our whole unit here from another buffer unit after the talk of war with the Thelicosans started, and—”