Valkyrie (Expeditionary Force, #9)

by Craig Alanson

When I was a little kid, something like that happened more than once, because of our dog. In the winter, he liked to sleep on my bed, snuggled up against me. It was nice to have a warm companion on a freezing cold night, except when he got up, turned around and flopped down half on top of me, or took up part of my pillow. When he did that, I couldn’t turn over without tugging the sheet too tight around my neck, so I would have to get half out of bed, shove him out of the way, and hope I could get back to sleep. That was a pain in the neck, literally. Man, I loved that dog.

As I opened my mouth to yell for Skippy, the bot took two folded items of clothing from the basket. They were a bra and, I think the other thing is called a ‘bustier’? Kind of like a corset or a girdle, with a bra on top. Well, duh, of course the bra was on top, don’t know why I had to mention that. Anyway, the bra was yellow with lace and maybe pretty flowers. Clearly not something intended for everyday wear under a uniform top, unless I truly know nothing about women. Actually, forget what I said. I do know nothing about women.

It was sort of like a typical political party’s campaign platform, if it had been written by a terrorist group high on meth.

“Ugh. It was probably in that picture book of ‘Important Things Little Joey Needs To Know’, and you didn’t read it.” “I didn’t read it, because that book was insulting, you little shithead.” He had given me an illustrated book that looked like the Berenstain Bears, but the bears in his book taught lessons about math and physics and other nerdy stuff that put me right to sleep. After using a marker to draw beards and fangs on the bears, I had thrown that book away. “Did they succeed?

was on my best behavior during our morning meeting, and I did drink the whole smoothie. Then I went back to the galley later for a Fluff-on-toast. You need to be careful not to give your body too much nutrition, or it gets spoiled. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

“The first unanswered question is your preferred personal pronoun.” For a second, I froze, just blinking slowly at him. “Uh, what again?” “Your, preferred, personal, pronoun.” He said very slowly. “Ugh. Like, do you prefer to be called ‘he/him’ or ‘she/her’ or ‘they/them’ or something else.” “This is on an official Army form?” I was sure he was screwing with me. “Yes, dumdum. The Army has been changing with the times. Try to keep up, huh?” “For real? Uh, well, I prefer to be referred to as ‘Valroth the Destroyer, Devourer of Worlds’.” That made him chuckle. “Nope, that’s too long for the form.” “How about just ‘Val’ for short?” “Joe, you need to take this seriously.” “Ok. Can you input ‘Duuuuuude’?” “Let me try- Huh. It worked.” “Are the rest of the questions like that?” “No. Some of them are really stupid,” he admitted. My day kind of went downhill from there.

“Because, if that elevator were to suffer a fatally unfortunate malfunction, I would not lose sleep over it. If you know what I mean.” “Ah. Gotcha. You know, Joe, you should never skimp on elevator maintenance.” “I will make a note of it.” “Three, two, one, wow. Well, good thing I don’t have to clean up that mess. There’s a Larry-sized stain on the bottom of the elevator shaft. Yuck. Ok, well, now we have another decision to make.” The last thing I wanted right then was yet another problem. “What?” “Do we send flowers of condolence, or a fruit basket, to Larry’s family?” “How about we do neither, and imagine we did? It’s the thought that counts.” “True. Besides, Larry’s family hated him too.”