“I’m sure he has, and I’m afraid that’s all he’s done; read and store in his memory. That doesn’t mean he understands any of it. Particularly that he doesn’t understand the purpose, the context, the history.”

“Colonel,” she avoided my eyes when she addressed my rank, “you’ve been in combat. I’ve been Supply my entire career.”

“You went through officer training. UNEF gave me silver eagles, and a giant email of courses I was supposed to take, then I got sent out planting potatoes. I didn’t even get formal training to be a sergeant. I got promoted, had a week with my fireteam at Alpha, then we shipped out and were posted to a village as an EOT straight away. It was on the job training the whole way.”

She thought silently for a moment. “There’s no equivalent to the Geneva Convention out here. That big list we got of The Rules of interstellar warfare, don’t address treatment of prisoners, or any rules of engagement, other than the basic rule that you don’t screw with habitable planetary biospheres. We have the Army code of conduct, but, I think, here’s where Skippy is exactly right; we’re pirates. This mission isn’t sanctioned by UNEF, or any human authority, military or civilian. We’re on our own.”

“Great.”

“Colonel Joe, if I may provide some advice of my own?” Skippy spoke through the zPhone on my belt.

“You’re going to anyway, right?”

“Pretty much, yeah. Major Simms is correct, there is no formal, agreed, written rules of engagement out here. Such rules wouldn’t apply to piracy anyway. You know what you’re going to do, Joe; you’re going to blow the Thuranin into space, because that is the only practical way to achieve your mission, and keep the Thuranin from discovering that humans hijacked one of their starships. You have to kill them to keep your entire species safe. You know what you have to do, you’re only looking for someone else, like Major Simms, to tell you it’s all right. You’re a colonel, you’re the commanding officer, you need to take full responsibility for your decisions.

Through clenched teeth, I said “Thank you, Skippy. That's very helpful.”

Simms gave me a sad, sympathetic smile.

“Oh, no problem, you’re welcome, any time.” He responded cheerily, oblivious to my sarcasm, or ignoring it. “If it makes you feel any better, the Thuranin would never spend a second agonizing over a question like this, they’d squash you humans like bugs and not think anything of it. Any Thuranin who even questioned such a decision would be subjected to neural reprogramming.”

“Being told that I’m morally superior to Satan is not a positive, Skippy.”