“Great job, Oh One,” Rogers said. “You’re the first droid to ever commit fratricide.”

“While I should appreciate your praise, sir, I don’t understand how fratricide would be classified as a good job. Is it encouraged to kill one’s peers in training?”

Rogers shook his head. He should know better than to think droids understood sarcasm. They couldn’t even march properly.

“No,” Rogers said. “No, it’s not. Never mind. Tunger, are you sure we’re ready for firearm practice?”

Tunger brushed gray dust off his uniform, his hands shaking. “No, sir.”

“I didn’t think so. Maybe we should try—”

The Flagship exploded. At least, that’s what it seemed like to Rogers. The lights went off, leaving only the red hue of the emergency glowbulbs. The ground vibrated. The walls seemed to be caving in. Every robot in the room was bathed in an eerie red glow, swathed in the shadow of the droid next to it. A shrill alarm split his ears, followed by the unintelligible speech of what must have been one of the public transportation announcers coming over the loudspeakers, shouting frantically:

“Fhrrr drigg. Mrhgh a ghnanbr. Next stop is grrnnsvilne shrugngh. All aboard!”

“Everyone get down!” Rogers screamed as he ducked. “I was wrong! I was wrong! The Thelicosans are attacking! I was wrong!”

That was the only possibility for this unbelievable chaos. They’d gotten the jump on Admiral Klein, come out of Un-Space with their cannons blasting, swarming over the fighter screen and pummeling the Flagship with everything they had. The alarm made everything between his ears start to ache, and the unintelligible speech of the announcer sounded more and more like someone reading the eulogy at his funeral.

“Sir!” Tunger shouted. Rogers abruptly realized that he was lying prone on the floor but had no recollection of getting there. He was in a maze of droid feet, trying to figure out how to get to the exit so that he could find an escape pod.

“I can’t hear you, Tunger! The Thellies are coming! The Thellies are coming! Get yourself a disruptor rifle and get to the bridge!”

“Sir!” Tunger said again. “Thurs is urnrly a fur drull!”

“And stop talking with that accent!”

He felt a shudder go through the floor and realized with horror that it was too late. The Thelicosans were already boarding. Their shock troops would be flying through the halls in moments, killing anyone who couldn’t identify the next prime number in a prearranged sequence of integers.^II Which, on this ship, would be everyone. Except the engineers, of course. They knew what the hell they were doing.

Just as Rogers was trying to remember which was the hypotenuse and which was hypertenuse—was there such a thing?—a realization came upon him. He had an army with him. It was a droid army, of course. A droid army that didn’t know where to fire their weapons and didn’t understand half the commands he gave it. But he could certainly use them for something. Not to fight the Thellies—Rogers didn’t join the military to fight anyone—but to cover his exit. He might not kill any enemy soldiers, but by god, he would shoot the ceiling over every Thelicosan bastard that got in his way!