Howard lowers his voice and whispers to Barbara, in a tone that's not at all threatening but is at least a little peeved, "don't tell me what to do. You might've been a teacher on your world but here we're equals, okay?"

He looks over at Sakura's suggestion and nods. He knows from experience that he and Zouichi work well together, or at least improvise ridiculous ways to get out of stupid situations together, just in case Stacy does decide to cough them up somewhere weird (like with Reavers). That leaves Ian as an unknown quantity, and while Howard's a bit surprised to realize that he'd pick Barbara over Ian for a fight, that also leaves the sciency people split. Sakura can do her weird ninja science thing and Ian can do his more normal human person thing.

"Sooner we figure this out, sooner we get a shower. Let's do it."