"We're a half lightsecond away now?" I couldn't tell how far we were from the display, the scale was confusing.

"No, a quarter of a lightsecond. They tried to take control earlier, I faked that we had trouble accepting the handoff, due to damage from the explosion. If I hadn't let them think they had control, they would have aborted the rendezvous, the Thuranin don't trust the Kristang to control their own ships for close maneuvers. They are running a diagnostic of our ship's systems, I'm telling them what they want to hear."

The display now showed our ETA was four minutes, and the star carrier's image was an outline of the ship, no longer a dot. We were close, very close.

"Pilot, standby to abort on my signal. Skippy, when can you do your thing?" I asked.

"My thing?"

"Your thing, your magic. Taking over the Thuranin computer systems." I asked urgently. What the hell else did he think I meant?!

“Oh, that. We're within range. Hmmm, this is going to be more difficult than expected, it may take longer than I thought. Damn.”

"More difficult how?" I asked, alarmed. Simms was on the couch behind me, unseen, and still I could sense the tension coming from her.

"Well, to be fair," Skippy explained, "I've never actually had contact with a Thuranin system before, seeing as how I've been stuck on Paradise for, like, a million years. I'm have to make this up as I go."

"What? Jesus fucking Christ, Skippy, you little shithead! A million years? How the hell can you understand Thuranin technology if you've never seen it? You told us you could absolutely do this! Damn it! A soldier in battle needs to know he can count on his comrades, you should have told us you weren't sure you could hack into their systems. Goddamn it! Pilot, abort the-"

"Belay that!" Skippy shouted. "We're good, I'm in."

"What?" I was out of breath from adrenaline.

"When I said 'longer than I thought', I meant longer in magical Skippy time, not longer in meatsack caveman time, you dumdum monkeyboy. I had full control over the star carrier 120 milliseconds after I said 'thought'."

"Goddamn it, Skippy, why didn't you stop me?"

"Hey, you were on a roll, I couldn't interrupt that. Your rant was very inspiring, Colonel Joe, I can see why you went from grunt to senior officer so quickly. Also, to be honest, I tuned out about halfway through. Could you repeat it for me, and skip the boring parts?"

"Fuck."

"That will have to wait, we're docking with the star carrier now. I directed the ship to assign us to a docking pad right at the front of the ship. No charge for the upgrade."

"Skippy," I grumbled through gritted teeth, then decided nothing I could say would make any difference.

The frigate wobble slightly, then there was a lurch to the side, a clanging sound, and Skippy announced we had docked. Gravity came back on gradually. "We're secured. Everyone, stay strapped in, we're going to jump shortly."