Great. They’d transferred someone from the Public Transportation Announcer Corps to be his second in command. A PTAC was all he needed.

Rogers sighed. “What’s wrong with your voice, corporal?”

The corporal looked indignant. “There’s nothing wrong with my voice, sir,” he said, his speech surprisingly intelligible all of a sudden.

“So, why are you talking like you’ve stolen all the marshmallows and had nowhere else to hide them?”

“It’s my Thelicosan accent, sir. I’m training to be a spy. Can’t be a spy if you don’t sound like the Thellies, can you? I practice all day.” He cleared his throat. “Aie means, aie practice allur dee days!”

Rogers shook his head. “What’s your name?”

The corporal’s speech degenerated into something that Rogers was nearly positive had no vowels in it.

“What?”

“Corporal Albert Tunger, sir! You see how good I’ve gotten? I can barely understand myself sometimes.”

“I’m sure you’re the envy of the intelligence squadron,” Rogers said. “I’m assuming you’re my second-in-command here?”

“Ah, nur,” the curpural—corporal—said. “Aie am yur urderly.”

“My what?”

“Your orderly. I’m here to tackle the administrative tasks that officers are generally too busy or too lazy to do.”

“Right,” Rogers said. “Well, the first thing I want you to do as my orderly is ditch that accent. I can’t work with someone that sounds like he’s always puckering up for a kiss.” Not that he wanted to do any actual work. He really just didn’t want to listen to Tunger talk.

“But,” Tunger whined, his face sagging, “I’m training to be a spy! How am I going to be a spy if I sound like your everyday Meridan man? They’ll shoot me the first time I open my mouth!”

“I’m considering shooting you right now. You can practice when we’re not in here doing, uh, droid stuff, okay? There are plenty of other people to talk to on this ship other than me.”

“Urrrkaaaayy . . .” Tunger said, hanging his head.

Rogers sat down in the only chair in the room, which was pushed up next to a computer terminal, and put his feet up. He tried to adopt a position of nonchalance and comfort, but with his uniform tailored to actually look good when worn, it was a difficult task. It always felt like his shirt and trousers were having a war over his underwear and had reached a stalemate.

“Now,” Rogers said, pulling at his crotch to no effect, “if you’re not my second, who is?”

One of the droids, front and center in the five-by-seven formation, stepped forward, his metal feet making much less noise on the floor than Rogers was used to hearing. Rogers saw why; the combat droids’ legs had a series of shock absorbers that ran from their hip joints down to their ankles, and their four-clawed feet sported some sort of soft rubber on the bottom. Rogers wasn’t sure which he preferred: a droid he could hear coming an astronomical unit away or a droid that he didn’t know was there until they rubbed noses.