When I woke up, and was in a better mood, I asked Skippy about his plan to raid the asteroid. Not a detailed plan, I needed to get Giraud to work on that soon, for now all I wanted was to hear the basic concept from Skippy. “You’ve had time to review all the data about the asteroid layout and defenses, right? How do we get inside the place?”

“Oh, I have a totally brilliant plan, Colonel Joe. We’ll use Thuranin dropships,” Skippy explained patiently, “I can get the outer landing bay doors open and fool their sensors. so the Kristang can’t shoot at the dropships. After the dropships land, the crew will rush the inner doors, and blow them open.”

“Rush the door in a depressurized landing bay? Skippy, none of us will fit into a Thuranin spacesuit. They’re too small.”

There was a millisecond pause, that, I now knew, was an eternity in AI time. “Well, shit.” Skippy finally said.

“Well, shit? Seriously? This isn’t a joke? You didn’t think about us humans needing space suits, in space? Let me define space suit for you; two words, the first is ‘space’-”

“I’m not a meatsack! I don’t think like you biological trashbags.”

“This biological trashbag is going to take a big dump on your lid, and throw you out an airlock.”

“That would be a better threat, if I didn’t control all of the airlock mechanisms, monkeyboy.”

“Airlocks have manual overrides. Ooh, look, monkey has opposable thumbs.” I waggled my thumbs at his lid.

“Shut up.”

“Well?”

“I’m thinking!” Skippy shouted defensively.

“I can smell the smoke.”

“What?”

“The next time you think of telling me how god-like smart you are, just remember ‘space suits’.”

“Oh, shut up. Never said I was perfect.”

“Go back to square one, and rethink your plan,” I said as I headed into the tiny bathroom. “I want to discuss it with Giraud this afternoon so he can start fixing your screw-ups. That’s in about ten hours, which is a bazillion years in Skippy time, so you’ll have plenty of opportunity to come up with idea that don’t include humans breathing hard vacuum.”

Private Randall approached me in the gym that morning, while I was sweating away with Sergeant Adams’ improved equipment, and he reported that Major Simms was satisfied the crew had completed their familiarization drills; that everyone now knew where the airlocks were, how to operate trams and lifts, where their duty stations were, and a whole list of emergency procedures that Chang and Simms insisted on, and Skippy thought were a complete waste of time.