We go to the "yard" to see what kind of shape my ship's in. I don't know what a "yard" is, but by observation it appears to be a plant cemetery. My ship is a giant mass of twisted metal shards, lying in the smoking cater which it created. It doesn't even look like a ship, more like a metal cabbage, with most of the leaves peeled off. But nothing the nanobots can't handle. I press a button on my utility watch and thousands of tiny robots flood out, forming a metal cloud as they await my orders.

"What are those?" asks the human. "Nanobots," I answer. What a stupid organism. "They're microscopic robots, but with enough of them they're incredibly useful. I normally bring about eighty thousand. Nanobots! Repair work! Now!" I order.

They disperse immediately; nanobots are programmed eager to please. When separated, they're all but invisible, but I can see my ship slowly putting itself back together. "Can't you use them for your injuries?" Katie asks.

Oh yeah, I'm injured. I kind of forgot. Maybe it's because of the blood loss. That's probably why the yard is spinning too.

"They can't do that. Well, they can, not well. They don't really understand that an organism can't repaired after it stops working, so they would just solve the problem head on, even if their method meant killing me in the process. For instance, say you needed a pill. They'd see that as inefficient and cut through you to fix the problem directly. They're better for machines."

"Don't you have any first-aid stuff in your watch?"

"Why would I? That would undo natural selection."

"Excuse me?"

I sigh. Doesn't she know anything?

"On Chroma, by having a civilization we took ourselves out of natural selection. That's why we have to enforce it ourselves. There's no medicine, and if you die, then future generations won't get your weak genes and the Chromish become stronger. That's why we have the mate system."

"The what?"

I'm getting really tired of explaining things to this human.

"When you turn twenty, the warlords take a sample of your genes and test your abilities: combat, intelligence, etc. If your score is above average you're allowed to reproduce. They pick a mate for you, and you…er…do the deed, and go your separate ways. The resulting eggs are left in the hatchery, to be taken care of by the mother robot, since hatchlings are very vulnerable to attachment syndrome. It's best to keep 'families' away from each other, it spreads love disease. In fact, we've all but eliminated it!"

She stares at me, her face a frozen mask of shock and horror. "That's terrible!" she gasps.

"Well, what do humans do?" I ask. "We marry who we want, stay with them, and keep our kids. And we don't just let people die," she answers. "Exactly. Now look where that got you. Overpopulation, a dying world, and an ever-weaker species," I retort, with what I hope is withering superiority. "But then no one gets a family!" she protests. "So? Look at me, I don't have one and I'm just fine. You don't really need one, they're just a luxury," I respond. It's true. You really don't need a family. I never knew my parents. I only know the word "friend" because I've interacted with people who aren't from Chroma. I never loved anyone and no one's ever loved me. Well, there is one person, but she's...classified.

The nanobots are finished. My ship is good as new—improved, even-with a few new battle scars. I press the same button on my watch, and they fly into the compartment from whence they came. I knew they'd be able to repair it but I still breathe a sigh of relief as I see my repaired ship. Since the day I started training, that ship's been home to me.

Sure, as the prince I live in the palace, but the palace didn't fight my first battle with me. The palace didn't keep me company on long journeys. The palace can't do a midair barrel-roll. Since I'm royal, you'd expect me to have a really fancy ship, the kind with a built-in zoo and gold-plated engines, but my parents (since they're the King and Queen they keep in contact with me, though we've never met. Royalty are the only ones who can stay with their mates, but they're more like business partners than anything else) want me to "build character."

Not that it's a bad ship, it's your average flyer. It's roughly the size of a small house, and, as I later found is a common human perception, is shaped like a saucer. Katie pointed it out to me.

That means the humans have had visitors before, though my ship is the galactic model, so they weren't necessarily Chromish. It's understandable, this star system's been used as a training ground for decades, it's one of the few stars that's owned by multiple nations. I can't have been the only one who's crashed here. "Have there been any other…encounters like this on your planet?" I ask. "Well, there's Area 51," she says.

"What's that?"

"In the fifties or forties, they say a UFO crashed in Area 51, with an alien inside. Most people don't it believe now, but they built a military base nearby for some reason, that's where they look for transmissions from space. But if we're really being used as a training ground they must be doing a pretty bad job."

That sounds about right. Normally, I'd just let the captive take care of themself, but they'd have no hope on this planet, no one would ever think to look for them here. I can't just strand them on a dying world. Plus, he or she would be in my debt, and that's really handy: an all-purpose tactic. Looks like we're going to Nevada.