“You also shouldn’t use the term ‘it’ at all. Skippy prefers ‘he’, although I think that’s for our benefit. And, since we don’t have any sort of artificial intelligence of our own, isn’t ‘Advanced’ redundant?”

Constantine gave me a look that was a combination of his usual smirk and a frown. “Sergeant, I do not appreciate your flippant, and frankly, unprofessional, attitude. You had interactions with an immensely powerful being that were inappropriate, and dangerous. Dangerous, not only to yourself, but to all of humanity. It would be best for everyone involved if you had no further contact with the AAIB. You should have brought the dev-,” he stumbled over his words, “the AAIB, to the appropriate authorities on Paradise, so qualified people could have conducted the interactions.”

I coughed, and took a sip of my oh-so-delicious club soda and lime. That gave me enough time to restrain myself from punching the pompous jerk in the face. “The appropriate authorities? On Paradise? Which, since you’re not up on current events, is our supposed enemies, the Ruhar. Human troops were all being taken prisoner. And by qualified, I assume you mean someone like yourself?”

He nodded.

“Qualified, because of your extensive experience with advanced artificial intelligences that were built millions of years ago by aliens, who have since transcended their physical existence. Oh, wait, that can't be you, you have zero experience with beings like that. Who does?” I pinched my chin, as if lost in thought. “There must be someone who has extensive close contact with this advanced being, someone who worked with this advanced being to escape from enemy territory, capture not one but two enemy starships, vaporize more than a dozen other enemy starships, shut down the local wormhole, and destroy the Kristang’s hold on Earth. Hmm, who could that be? You? No, not you.”

“Your continued flippant attitude is exactly why you shouldn’t-”

A set of doors on the far end of the room opened, and group of officers representing all five uniformed branches came across the room toward me. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what a Coast Guard admiral was doing in Colorado Springs. Most of them angled off to speak with a guy I recognized as the White House chief of staff, but two Air Force guys walked right up to me, carefully pushing a cart that had a thick red pillow, and Skippy, on top of it. "Sergeant Bishop," one of them started to say.

"Colonel Joe! How have you been?" Skippy's voice sounded tired, which should have been impossible. Maybe I did need to scrounge up some metallic helium 3, whatever that was.

"Pretty good, Skippy. It's good to see you again. How was your, uh, debriefing?" I wasn't lying, I had very much missed his irascible self.