Now we’re talking! Rogers thought as the Jasker 120 slid down the back of his throat, smooth as butter. Finally, a good card game, a cigar, and a bottle of fine Scotch. Maybe life wasn’t so bad after all.

. . . Was what he wished he was thinking as he sipped from the dirty canteen cup that held some of the most vile swill he’d ever come across. He sat with Lopez in the engineering bay on top of a couple of empty crates, watching the last remnants of the crew fill out paperwork and curse at the results of their inspection. They’d failed with flying colors; the boominite containers had been stacked in the wrong pattern and they found a raccoon in the engine of one of the starfighters. McSchmidt had apparently left in tears and hadn’t been seen since.

Rogers grimaced at his cup. It tasted like someone had boiled their feet in a vat of spoiled eggs and vinegar, but there was definitely the distinct bite that told Rogers it was at least alcoholic.

“Puts hair on your chest, doesn’t it?” Lopez said. She smacked her lips and wiped them on the back of her hand.

“Or my dinner on the floor,” Rogers replied, swallowing his body’s attempt to eject the drink.

“Hey,” Lopez said, “I made this myself. It took me months to get the materials together and figure out a good spot to brew it without the Stan/Eval droids getting all over me for it.” She forcibly clinked her cup against Rogers’, sending some of the moonshine—if you could call it that—over the side of the cup. Rogers was not at all upset that some of it had been wasted.

“Clearly, you’ve been an engineer for a while, then?” Rogers said. Or an alcoholic.

“Twelve years a wrench-turner,” she said, burping.

“How did you manage not to get put to work in the kitchens with the rest of the crew?”

Lopez shrugged. “Who knows the reasons they do anything around here? Maybe they’re getting an apron ready for me right now. Bah!” She threw her empty cup on the floor.

“I know how you feel,” Rogers said. “They put me in charge of ground combat droids.”

Lopez’s eyes went wide. “I heard about them. I can’t believe they’re giving them weapons. Do you think it’s safe?”

Rogers thought back to his experience with the control pad and the droids deconstructing part of the ship.

“No.”

“So, why are you doing it?”

“Don’t have much of a choice, do I?” Rogers said, a little more aggressively than he’d intended. “What are you going to do if they tell you to grab a chef hat and make a mousse?”

Lopez thought for a moment. “Make a really shitty mousse, I suppose.”

“Exactly. And I’m going to make a really shitty ground combat unit.”

The sergeant stood up, yawning loudly, and motioned for Rogers to follow her. “Come on. No use grousing. I’ll show you around.”

Rogers wasn’t exactly sure what she was going to show him; he’d worked in the Pit for nearly a decade and knew every nook and cranny of it. But it was nice to talk to someone who wasn’t insane, even if she did try to pass off hog’s piss as alcohol.