"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."

"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.