Amelia Manning liked her job, for the most part. But there were days when half of her seemed to be missing. She missed the pace of engineering work, the buzzing of the inner circuitry running through her veins, and the loud hum of the warp core driving the beating of her heart. Those days she found herself on Main Engineering, and when asked, she would tell them she was checking in, to see if everything was running smoothly. Eventually, she started learning the names of some of the officers running around, doing the job she had once done herself. And she envied them. As she spent more and more time around Engineering, especially in the later shifts, it was no longer possible to hide it. She found herself making friends, and that had been how the poker game she ran on Tuesdays had started.

Today however, Manning was running through the several departments, actually doing her monthly check in with the different department heads. As she sat behind her desk with a steaming cup of Orange Pekoe, Amelia went over her schedule for the day. She had been up and running for a few hours, holding her weekly Senior Staff round-table first thing in the morning, and then taking two hours to review the reports that had come in the night before. Then, she had met with Harris before lunch and discuss the same reports she had reviewed, she had had the time for a quick bite from her own office’s replicator, and plan what her afternoon was going to look like. That day she was planning on hitting Medical and Science, leaving Security and Engineering for the next day.

As she placed her empty cup on its saucer, Amelia took her PaDD and walked out the door. Her wrist chronometer marked 14:03. She was running behind schedule.

It didn’t take long for Amelia to get from her office to Sickbay, even though she took five extra minutes to catch up with NE Wilkinson who she had bumped into in the turbolift.

At 14:12, Manning was walking through the Sickbay doors, cutting rapidly through the biobeds and the medical officers currently on duty, stopping only at the CMO’s office’s door. Without even looking around, Amelia palmed the chime and waited at the door.

Cmdr. Manning, XO