The flight recorder video of the asteroid being nuked was popular with the crew. The surviving crew. It wasn't my idea for people to watch the video, I hadn't even mentioned it. Desai or Walorski must have said something, or someone asked Skippy what happened, and he volunteered to show them. Watching the utter destruction of the asteroid research base was cathartic for the crew, as it had been for me. Army doctors tell us that talking about traumatic events helps with the symptoms of PTSD; keeping things bottled up inside yourself, or trying not to remember what happened to you, makes it worse. Skippy told me the survivors asked him if there was video of the raid, from cameras on the combots and Kristang suits. There was video, and I told him to release it to anyone who wanted to watch. Giraud and I would watch all the video and sensor feed data, to learn lessons on what we did right and what we did wrong.

Giraud subtly chided me for being unprofessional, blowing up the entire asteroid had not been necessary to the mission, I'd done it because I was angry, because I wanted the lizards to feel the pain we felt, at losing so many people. So many humans. Maybe I'd done it out of frustration and guilt that I'd not gone on the raid. Whatever. Psychology isn't my area of expertise.

The raid was both a success and a failure. In terms of lives lost, it was a failure, I'd now lost over half our original crew, and some of the wounded were going to take months to recover, even with incredible Thuranin medical technology. In terms of Skippy finding a way to locate the Collective, it was a failure; the thing we'd brought back was exactly what Skippy had asked for, it wasn't damaged, it wasn't inert, Skippy was able to power it up and read data from it, the thing simply didn't tell him anything useful. He didn't know whether the fault was with the device, or within himself, he had a bad feeling that somehow he was blocked from memories that would allow him to access data about the Elders. About himself. And about where he came from, who he was. He didn't tell anyone else about his doubts and fears, only me. For my part, I kept his secret, and worried on my own that someday Skippy would lock up, or blue screen, or go dormant, or whatever happened with ancient AIs