Joe had not necessarily been too enthused about the last assignment the Merri had had. He hadn’t cared for the people for one thing. Who shot kids off into space blindly? But then he had had to be nice to them. Diplomacy bah! It had never been Joe’s strongpoint. But now they had an honest to goodness mission. They were out to help some people. And of course, there might be some danger involved. Which explained the fact that Joe was now busy trying to beat the lining off of a punching bag which he would follow with a two-mile run.

As Joe finally got around to running, he thought through the meeting. He was happy with his team He was pretty sure they would do well. Of course, he knew that he had made Doctor Cross angry but that had been a tactical decision on his part. He was overall happy with the way things were going.

 Lt. Cmdr. Joe Milligan XO