"Lasagna."

"What's in it?"

"Everything you put in a lasagna." Jordy rolls his eyes and recites the ingredients. "Pasta, cheese, meat, tomatoes, tomato sauce..."

"What kind of meat?" the un-helmeted storm-trooper asks.

"Ah, red meat." Jordy shrugs. "I don't know what animal it used to be."

"You should know! That's your job! A soldier knows everything before he goes into battle!" The storm-trooper is pounding the air with his fist. "You are not a good soldier!"

"I'm not a soldier. I scoop food onto plates," Jordy huffs. "If you need to know ingredients, you need to ask the cook, not me."

"With that attitude, you will never advance to the infantry. You will never have glory or victory!"

"Yeah, I'm good with that." He picks up the big metal spoon. "You want the lasagna or not?"

"Yeah, it looks really good. Does it come with rolls?"

"Two rolls and a side Caesar salad."

"Does the Caesar have anchovies?"

Jordy taps the spoon on the warming pan and sighs. "I don't know, but I will find out for you."

The trooper laughs. "I'm fucking with you. I'll take it."

Jordy puts two scoops of lasagna and two rolls on a plate. "You need a tray. The plate is hot."

The trooper picks up a tray and it slips from his grip. "These trays are wet!"

"They're wet? Mother fuckers!" Jordy runs around the serving line, picks up the tray, and drys it with a towel. "This was supposed to be fixed! I'm going to kill someone!"

The trooper points a finger at him. "Now you're thinking like a soldier." He takes his tray and walks to the soda fountain.

Jordy dries ten more trays and serves a group of troopers who just came off detention block duty. The pan of lasagna and day-old spaghetti, with extra cheese broiled on top, are empty. A young female server pushes a cart from the galley door and takes the empty pans. She replaces them with two more pasta dishes. Jordy recognizes Pasta Primavera but not the other.

"What's that?"

"Penne arrabbiata." Tessa swipes a lock of hair from her face. "Barney says it's spicy."

Jordy sniffs it. "It smells spicy." He gets a fork and tastes it. "Holy shit that's fucking hot!"

"If you don't want any of the bruisers to shoot you from across the room, you should alert them to how hot it is."

"I will. Who eats that shit?"

"It's Lord Vader's favorite. Maybe he'll come in for it."

"I hope not. The freak is always yapping about the Force." He picks up his towel and flaps it to dry it out. "The trays are still wet. Did you hear there was a big dust up on the upper levels because of this?"

"Why does anybody care? It's just water."

"Officers spend more time ironing their uniforms than whatever else they're supposed to be doing. Getting water on their sleeve makes them look sloppy."

"Oh. And the troopers are expected to be perfect by their commanders, so they expect everything else to be perfect." Tess takes a towel from the cart. "I'll help you dry them before the officers come in."

"Thanks." After ten minutes, they have dried a hundred trays. "That should calm the barbarians."

A large man in a white uniform storms out of the galley. "We got a major fucking problem!" A few troopers sitting nearby look over for a brief moment.

"What's wrong, Barn Dog?" Jordy flaps his towel and throws it on Tessa's cart as she pushes it toward the scullery.

Barney leans in to Jordy's ear. "I'm out of dough. I can't make any more dinner rolls."

Jordy looks at the roll pan. It is only half full. "Oh shit. That's not enough. We got a big crowd coming in half an hour. Didn't Bing make the rolls?"

"Yeah, but she didn't make enough dough, and it takes four hours to rise." He throws up his hands. "She thinks eating bread with pasta is wrong. Mama mia!"

A thin female with wispy hair comes out of the galley. "Okay, hot shot! I mixed more dough and yeast and put it in the oven set to 150 degrees. I think it will rise in two hours."

"We need rolls right now." Jordy points to a clock. "We got a shit load of officers coming and you gave me a very spicy pasta. They are going to need those rolls, with bantha milk."

Barney pushes his hair back. "We need to get dough from another canteen. One not serving anything with sauce or gravy." He snaps his fingers. "Who's making pot pie? That has a crust. No need for rolls."

"Only one person could know that," Tessa says, popping into the conversation. "Mr. Stevens."

"I hate to bother him." Jordy wrings his hands.

"That's his job." Barney spins around. "I'll call him." He grabs a phone from the wall.

One minute later, Jordy and Tessa are running down a wide passageway, weaving between marching formations of storm-troopers and clumps of officers trying to look tough. They leap ahead of some tech types into an elevator and close the doors.

A brief ride upward and they leap out and crash into some TIE fighter pilots. After feigning insanity they run down another curved passageway.

"Here it is!" Jordy leads Tessa into a canteen half filled with mid level commanders wearing wide black helmets. They slip behind the serving line and into the galley.

"What you blokes want?" a thick necked cook asks. "This ain't your level."

"We need dinner rolls." Jordy is almost out of breath. "You're serving pot pie. You don't need rolls to hand out."

"We know that," another cook says. "That's why we didn't make rolls."

Jordy looks to Tessa, then back. "Did you rise any dough?"

"Yeah, for the crust. We used it all."

"Oh, fucking shit." Jordy slaps his head. "I'm going to kill Barney."

"We have some extra."

Jordy looks around the room. "Extra what?"

A small cook's assistant with tiny black eyes is lost among the large cooks. "We have extra dough. I always make more than we need."

"Can we have it?"

"No you can't fucking have it!" the head cook bellows. "I might need it later."

"Mr Stevens sent us here."

"I don't care." He scratches his armpit. "Get out of here!"

Jordy winks at Tessa. "Can I see how much you have? Maybe you can spare a quart or two."

"No. Fuck off!"

The little assistant holds up a large round tub that is semi opaque. It is more than half full of rising dough. "Here it is."

"Hey! Put that down!"

"How about just a pinch. That's all we need." Jordy puts his hand down near a jar of grounded black pepper.

"I said to fuck off!" The cook grabs a meat knife and holds it high. "Unless you want to be tomorrow's lunch special, you clear out!"

Jordy grabs the pepper jar and flings the contents toward the row of cooks. They scream as the pepper burns their eyes. Tessa leaps over a steel table and grabs the tub of dough from the assistant and gives him a wink. He winks back and scurries under the table. She throws the tub to Jordy and kicks the head cook in the testicles.

"Oh, fuuuu!" The cook bows over. Tessa leaps over the table and follows Jordy out of the galley.

Fifteen minutes later, a line of officers is being served various pasta dishes along with two hot dinner rolls and a Caesar salad. Many complain that the arrabbiata is too hot.

"It is Lord Vader's favorite meal. He doesn't think it's too spicy."

"Oh, I said it was a little spicy but well balanced."

A few hours later, the next food service shift come in.

"Good evening, Jordy," says Roy. He is always too cheerful. "How was your shift?"

"A little hick-up near the end, but a normal day."

"Oh, that's fine to hear." He looks at the remaining portions in the serving pans. "Pene arrabbiata. That's popular. Lord Vader likes that one."

"That's what I hear. I'll see you in twelve." Jordy wanders out of the canteen toward his bed.