"I thought you couldn't make a ship jump if you were aboard?" Chang asked, confused. "Don't you need us to get aboard the Thuranin ship, control their navigation system, before we can jump?"

"Huh? No, not this time. The Thuranin already had a jump programmed into their nav system and on a timer after we docked, I'm letting that system run on its own. I'll warp spacetime to throw us off course, as jumping into the heart of a Thuranin task force would be rather inconvenient. Unless I'm missing something?" There was a smartass tone to his question.

"No, that's good, thank you." Chang replied.

"And, three, two, one, jump. Done. We're good, we came out of jump one third of a lightyear from the intended emergence point. I have the star carrier on total EMCON, and have ordered the Kristang to do the same. Oh, darn, it, pesky lizard. The Kristang commander has noticed we didn't jump to where we were supposed to, he is demanding to know why, and also is demanding access to our ship."

"Can you hold him off?" I asked, alarmed. The last thing we wanted was an armed Kristang force walking through the Thuranin ship and knocking on our airlock door. Or flying a dropship over to our landing bay.

"Oh, yeah, I bitchslapped him right away. The Thuranin don't take any crap from their client species. I told him to shut the fuck up, that we altered our jump to avoid a Jeraptha battleship, and that this frigate is under quarantine. He doesn't like it, he also knows he doesn't have any choice."

"All right, what's next?"

"Colonel Joe, you're the commander. My suggestion is we go aboard the star carrier, and round up the eighty seven Thuranin crew."

"Us against eighty seven armed Thuranin cyborgs?" I asked, incredulously. We had barely defeated a dozen Kristang.

"Eighty seven cyborgs who are sound asleep. I ordered their brain implants to put them all into an unscheduled sleep maintenance cycle, they're basically in a coma." Skippy explained. "Ha! And those little green pinheads think being cyborgs is a strength."

"Just like that?" I asked. "We have complete control over the entire ship?' It felt like a letdown. I could live with that, any day.

"Yup. Just like that. Behold, the magic of Skippy the Magnificent. Truthfully, as magic at my level goes, this is lame. Still, it impresses the monkeys, right?"

I nodded. "This monkey is sufficiently impressed."

"Agreed." Chang said.

"This human is impressed." Simms retorted. "Colonel, if I was skeptical of your shiny beer can before, I'm not now."

"He's not my beer can, Major Simms." I hastened to correct her before Skippy got mad. "Skippy is more of a sentient being than any of us."

"Than all of you put together." Skippy

Damn, that beer can was smug.