"Huh. That's a great idea, Skippy." Why hadn't I thought of that? Skippy had told me he could temporarily disrupt a wormhole on his own, the controller module was needed to shut one down permanently. "We'll be on a strict time limit, then?"

"Strict, yes. Once I disrupt that wormhole, the Thuranin will be very interested to learn what the hell happened. As soon as the wormhole resets, there are going to be ships coming through, and since the Thuranin are suspicious, paranoid little green MFers, I can guarantee some of their ships will be visiting Earth, and they won't be there to use their Starbucks gift cards. The Thuranin have an established protocol for investigating a new wormhole connection; they send a heavy force of battleships through, with cruiser escorts. We do not want to tangle with a Thuranin battlewagon, one of those ships could pound the Dutchman into subatomic particles, and even I could only slow them down." Skippy had mentioned several times that, for all its apparent power, a star carrier was not primarily a warship, it was a long-range transport for warships. In a fight, star carriers ran away and let their escorts fight.

"That is perfect, Skippy. Please plot a new jump course to Earth." We'd be on Earth only long enough for a cup of coffee, or, in my, case, a cheeseburger. I could taste it already. The ancient Elder AI had surprised me again, I'd been ready for a long and heated argument about whether we continued searching for the Collective, or resupply at Earth. Skippy didn't respond to arguments, he did respond to facts and logic. "Hey," my finger poised above the button to turn off the light, "out of curiosity, what did you calculate as the odds of the raid we just did succeeding?"

"Originally, thirty seven point six percent. Then, after the crew demonstrated proficiency with combots, and Captain Giraud developed his assault plan, I calculated the odds at fifty one point one percent."

"Barely fifty percent? You didn't think this was worth mentioning?"

"Above fifty percent. Above is above. You didn't ask. And your records indicate math is not your strongest competency."

Arguing about the past wasn't productive. "The jump engines will be fully charged in two and half hours, right? Wake me in two hours."

"Unbelievable. I'm the most advanced sentience in the galaxy, and you're using me as an alarm clock."

"Two hours, Skippy. Good night."