"The ship is ready for jump, and the course is programmed into the autopilot," Skippy announced, with a touch of impatience. "The pilot knows which button to push."

"Pilot?" I asked.

"I'm ready, Captain." Desai did have a finger poised over a large button on the console in front of her. "Mister Skippy walked me through programming the jump into the autopilot, I do not understand how it actually works."

We monkeys might never understand how the jump navigation computer worked. "Initiate jump." I said simply.

And we jumped. The display flickered, and the only change I could detect was that a white dot that was on the bottom right corner of the display was gone.

"Jump successful, Captain." Desai said. "According to the instruments."

"Confirmed." Skippy said simply.

"Excellent," I relaxed in the chair, "what's the plan now?"

Skippy, of course, had an immediate answer. "When the Jump engines are charged again, we head out. We're safely away, that jump was far enough that the Thuranin ships searching for us will be totally lost."

I looked at the status screen that showed the Kristang ships attached to the platforms along the star carrier's long spine. "What about our unwanted guests?"

"Oh, them. I can eject the other Kristang ships, and leave them here before we jump. You still want to keep the Flower, right?" Skippy suggested.

I frowned. "We should keep the, uh, Flower, yes." We had to shorten that ship’s long-ass name. "The other ships, won't they be able to make it back to Paradise? Or get close enough to signal for help?"

"There is a 36 percent chance that, by consolidating fuel into one ship and sacrificing the others, a single ship could make enough Jumps to be within practical signaling range, yes. The critical variable is the maintenance state of the Kristang jump engines. There is a 64 percent probably of Jump engine failure, from repeated jumps."

"No."

"No? The monkey wishes to see my calculations?" Skippy's voice sounded amused.

"No, this monkey wishes there to be a zero percent chance the lizards, or the Thuranin, ever find out what happened out here. If either of them learn humans are involved in our little pirate action, Earth is toast."

There was another almost imperceptible AI response lag. "I can interfere with their jump engine computers, but it is likely they could eventually recover functionality by restoring from protected archives."

"That's not what I meant. What's the weapons load on this bucket? The Thuranin must have something stronger than railguns."

"Railguns, too, but also missiles, and masers."

"Anything that will completely vaporize a lizard ship? I don't want anything left, no flight recorders, nothing that could be recovered." I could see the others looking at me skeptically, wondering where I was going with my questions.