“Congratulations on returning to consciousness!” the monitor said. “You are entitled to a complimentary twenty-ounce fountain beverage of your choice, to be redeemed any of the many Snaggardir’s Sundries locations available across the galaxy. Remember: whatever you need, you can Snag It at Snaggardir’s™!”

“So, you’re finally awake,” Mailn said. She was grinning at him, but there was genuine concern in her eyes.

“What happened?” Rogers asked, lying back in bed. His whole body felt like it had just been put together from pieces of grenade victims.

Mailn chuckled. “You had, ah, a little incident in the training room with the droids.”

It all came back to Rogers in a flash. The marching, the control pad, the targeting practice. The fire drill. The pain.

“Oh,” Rogers groaned.

“You put on quite a show,” Mailn said. “Watching the video was—”

“Wait,” Rogers said, sitting upright despite the pain. “There’s a video?”

“Oh yeah,” Mailn said. “There’s a video.”

Rogers flopped back down again onto the pillow. “I never want to see it.”

“It’s alright,” Mailn said. “I’ve watched it so many times now, I could direct a film reenacting it. How could you not know that a fire drill was happening? Your personal terminal should have told you when you woke up that morning.”

“First, I never trust a computer,” Rogers said. “And second, I don’t even know what a fire drill is. The last time we had one was when I was in primary school. I’ll tell you what, Cynthia: between the inspections and the fire drills and the being chased around by barbers, I don’t know how anyone on this ship ever gets anything done.”

Even as the words left his mouth, Rogers knew they felt wrong. Since when did he give a Sewer rat’s ass about getting anything actually done? He supposed that maybe actual, no-kidding work was preferable to all this idiocy. Any sane man would rather do his job than listen to Inspect-o-Droid issue him demerits, though Rogers had to admit he was feeling a little less sane these days.

“Anyway,” he said, “I’m just thankful I’m alive. I don’t think a normal man could have survived that kind of pain.”

“Are you kidding me?” Mailn laughed. “Most of your injuries were caused by your head hitting the floor when you fainted like a little girl. You screamed like one too.”

Rogers felt his face getting red. He did not faint. He was brutally injured in the line of duty.

“Speaking of screaming,” Rogers said, changing the subject as hurriedly as he could, “I thought I heard you shouting in here. What’s going on?”

Mailn’s expression flattened. “You had quite the endless stream of visitors. Just about every brass monkey in the fleet was in here at one point or another. Even Klein popped in once.”

“Klein?” Rogers asked, his voice cracking. This was bad. This was really bad.

“Yep. Said some really powerful stuff.” Mailn shook her head. “I’d follow that man anywhere. He’s a true leader.”