Maybe if he did a supremely awful job, they’d have to transfer him. They were transferring everyone, weren’t they? A couple of accidents, hopefully ones that didn’t involve Rogers getting smashed by a droid, and they’d put him somewhere else. Finance, maybe. As long as they didn’t make him an executive assistant, anything had to be better than commander of the droid ground combat unit.

That was it. He’d just be bad at his job. It would be easy, since Rogers had no idea how to do it properly in the first place.

Rogers grinned. He felt a little bit like his old self again. No duty was too great that R. Wilson Rogers couldn’t find a way to shirk it.

His glee collapsed when he hit the button and the door opened, revealing a platoon of droids looking straight at him. The only other human in the room yelled at the top of his lungs.

“A-TEN-HOOOOOAH!”

I. Don’t knock it till you try it.

Big Orange Button

In front of him, neatly arrayed in a perfect formation, was large a collection of droids, all looking like they’d just come fresh off the manufacturing belt. Their exoskeletons were clean, shimmering, and of a darker shade than the other droids, though Rogers couldn’t quite put a name to the color. Their heads, horse-like if any comparison to any animal could be made, each bore a pair of glimmering blue eyes, all of which seemed to be fixed on Rogers. In total, he counted five by seven rows, making thirty-five shinies under his command. It was thirty-five too many.

“Um, at ease?” Rogers said uncertainly. “Are you all capable of being at ease? Would you melt?”

Nothing happened. The eerie metallic soldiers appeared no more at ease than a group of construction beams that had just been told an awful joke. Rogers wasn’t even sure they had noticed him; they stood so perfectly still that he wondered if they were even turned on.

He turned to the only other human in the room, a corporal who, thankfully, responded to his command to be at ease. He was old for a corporal, which didn’t bode very well for his competence, but his uniform looked neatly pressed with the exception of a small white stain on his left boot. It surprised Rogers, not because the stain was there but because Rogers normally would have never noticed it. This officer thing was already starting to get to him; soon he’d be measuring his underwear to make sure they were folded four inches across. Or at least ordering an enlisted member to measure it.

“Well, then,” Rogers said by way of expressing his complete lack of ideas about what to do.

“Aie present to yur dee Artificial Intelligence Ground Combat Squrdrun,” said the corporal, his flat face and very out-of-style mustache turning up into a proud grin.

“Ah, what?”

The corporal, surprisingly, looked as though Rogers’ confusion pleased him. “Aie saids, Aie present to yur dee Artificial Intelligence Ground Combat Squrdrun!”