experiment!

"We didn't damage this thing, did we? Computer?" asked Place with a hint of worry in his voice.

"What? No. No. Probably not." The computer answered as if awakening from a dream, which it had.

"Good. Is it safe enough to dock yet?"

"Is it- yeah, I guess so..."

A different voice came over the internal speakers, one that sounded like the love child of an android and a tape recorder. "Docking Commencing."

Place straightened his coat and let loose a sigh. He resisted the urge to smooth back his hair.

"Alright. If we play it cool, maybe they won't even notice our little joyride."

"Our joyride?" inquired Ripley.

"I know you had a hand in this!" he spurted angrily. "Out of over 500 escape pods, you chose the one with the limbs and the death missiles!"

"And what if I did? How many people can genuinely claim to have piloted a science-fiction wet dream?"

Place sat back for a moment.

"As I recall, chatting away with artificial intelligences also used to be science fiction."

"True..."

"Am I estatically giddy about our conversation so far?" He raised an eyebrow questioningly, which would have had more of an effect if his counterpart in the debate wasn't buried in his coat pocket, and if there wasn't a Tel-E-trol Cerebral Command Helm hiding any facial expressions short of a full-body sneeze.

"Doesn't seem like it."

"There. I win." he replied with pride.

"What?"

"I win. I win the argument."

"How?"

"I dunno. I just win."

The tape-droid-baby voice spoke again. "Docking Complete. Pilot Controls on Standby."