We Will Be The Fighters of Fighting. We Will. We Will Seize. We Will Fight. We. Will. We Will Be The Winning People. We Will Be Victory.

We Will Fight. We Will Win. Those two sentences were underlined. The date on the top of the paper, Rogers noticed, was almost four standard months old.

Some of the other books stood out to Rogers. Public Speaking in a World Where the Public is Everywhere. You Schmooze, You Lose. Saying Things that Get People to Do What You Want.

And above the admiral’s desk was a large, elaborately framed document on which was written the curious epithet:

THIS CERTIFICATE SIGNIFIES THAT HAROLD C. KLEIN IS HEREBY INDUCTED INTO THE SOCIETY OF BURNED BREAD, AND IS TO BE GRANTED ALL THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES PERTAINING THERETO.

Underneath the signatures on the bottom was a large banner that said, GRADUATE OF TOASTMASTERS.

Rogers’ bad feeling deepened to the point where it might have been confused with severe indigestion. It was actually probably also severe indigestion. But there was definitely a bad feeling there too.

Sighing, he turned around and headed toward the small kitchenette stashed against the wall. Since Klein was so “busy,” he apparently had raw foodstuffs delivered to his room, where his previous execs had been cooking for him. Rogers wasn’t exactly a master chef, but he was pretty sure he could slap some meat on a piece of bread. As he worked, he propped the datapad up next to him so he could continue reviewing—approving—the orders while he made the sandwich.

Rogers paused for a moment as he realized that this was officially the first “working lunch” of his life. He immediately began to understand a lot of things about suicide.

The room was disturbingly silent, with only the ticking of several decorative clocks all around the room providing the background music. Rogers wasn’t really sure what kind of sandwich to make the admiral, but something about the way the admiral was sitting, hunched over his desk, made him not want to ask. Tapping through several orders—anything from transfer requests to materiel movements—he finally came to one that made him pause.

“Um, sir,” he said, finally breaking the silence. “I’ve got an order here from the captain of the Infuriating about starting double shifts in order to double perimeter patrols. Are you sure you want me to approve that?”

Klein looked up, and for a moment, Rogers thought he was going to scream at him to just approve everything.

“Hm,” he said. He tapped the nib of his pen on his desk. “Must be those Theracrisans.”

Rogers blinked. “You mean Thelicosans?”

The admiral locked eyes with him, and, for some reason, his face turned a little red. “Yes, of course. That’s what I meant. I’m very stressed, you understand. The Thelacisans.”

Rogers let it go.

“What do you think, Lieutenant? You’re a sharp young warrior.”

Rogers hesitated. “I wouldn’t call myself a warrior, sir. I’m an engineer.”

“I thought you were the commander of the AIGCS.”