Soon he had the squadron grouped up in five even lines, each in their own row of animal-silhouetted shooting ranges. They were all facing different directions, but he had to be satisfied with little victories.

“Alright,” he said. “Tunger, where do they put the rifles around here? If they’re going to practice shooting, they’ll need something to shoot.”

Tunger frowned. “They didn’t tell me that, sir. There’s no weapons locker in here. I could go down to the armory and see if they have anything.”

“If I may, sir,” Oh One said, “that won’t be necessary.”

Rogers looked around, trying to figure out where Oh One was in the formation. All these damn shinies looked alike. He’d have to paint Oh One’s face or something.

“Oh One, raise your hand.”

One of the droids at the front of the shooting lines raised its hand, and Rogers walked over to him.

“Stand still for a second.”

Reaching into his pocket—his shirt pocket, since those were the only ones not sewn shut—he pulled a small package of ketchup that he had taken from the Uncouth Corkscrew yesterday, when he still thought he might actually have to put it on something. He smeared a line of it under the droid’s eyes, instantly turning it into some sort of insane badger. At least it distinguished him.

“There,” Rogers said. He was about to put the packet back into his pocket but thought better of it and simply held it in his hand behind the control pad. “Now, what were you saying?”

“AIGCS members come equipped with their own weapons. There is no need to visit the armory.”

“Is that right?” Rogers said, hoping his voice didn’t crack. Having droids that knew how to operate weapons was one thing; having them always carrying them was another. He didn’t like the idea of not being able to take them away if anything went wrong. “Well, let’s see them.”

“As part of our programming, the AIGCS is not permitted to draw weapons without a direct order from the commander.

“Right,” Rogers said, somewhat comforted. “The control pad.”

He looked at the pad—which was, of course, locked—and swiped his keycard through it. If the first button was maneuvers, perhaps the second button was combat commands. He pressed it, only to find that instead of anything useful, it brought up what appeared to be a directory of addresses and contact numbers for Snaggardir’s locations all across the Meridan system.

“Well, that doesn’t help me at all. Why is that on the control pad?”

The third button brought up a catalog of products sold at Snaggardir’s—did that place sponsor these droids or something?—which one could buy and have delivered. Rogers briefly thought about taking a moment to stock up on anything that wasn’t a SEWR rat, but he could save that for another time.

The fourth button switched on one of the droids’ speaker systems, through which started playing a very sappy tune by Larisa Sparklefoot, a popular Meridan pop star.