[snip]

“Thank you again,” said Glen. “What kind of flowers are these? They are quite unusual.”

“I appropriated them from the arborteum, Sir,” Hal explained.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell the Ship’s Botanist.”

“You probably aren’t going to be able to stay much longer,” Glen told Hal. “Grunch has ordered another tranche of tests on me to discover what’s wrong, but keep me abreast of what is happening via this tech and camera.”

“Of course, Sir,” Hal replied. “I’ll leave you to the tender minstrations of the Tellarite.”

”..I’ll return shortly Captain once Mr Grunch lets me know how I should proceed!” The Nurse said dashing off.

“It doesn’t look like I’m going anywhere,” replied the Captain.

Captain Glen surveyed the Merrimack from the comfort of his bio-bed. it seemed that everything was running within normal parameters; there were no major repairs underway, and long range sensors were showing no hostile shipping. They were on their way to the Hromi Cluster nebula where they would collect dark matter, and the construction of the ‘machine’ in the cargo hold was well underway. With nothing else to do, and Kord appearing to have the ship under control, Glen tapped into the Sickbay’s patient entertainment system (PES) which was advertised as featuring “magic shows, bingo, as well as musical performances, and is a great place to just relax.”

Glen began playing a massively multi-player, multi-media, online role-playing game set in a universe where the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service was pitted against insectoid aliens from the planet Pison Eu in the Delta Quadrant. He played the role of a young farm-boy from a small village who turns out to be the great hero of destiny. This game occupied him completely for several weeks.

-Glen, CO