[snip]
[snip]

When Tia returned to check on the simulation, she sighed. Deep down she had hoped, kind of, that there would be some great anomaly she could use to postpone or even quash the activation. Sadly, there wasn’t. She sent the reports to the CO and XO and moved to finish setting things up in Engineering for the actual activation. After another hour, as third shift came to a close, she messaged Daniel and left a missive on his comm for him to get when he woke. It said the tests were successful and to come to Engineering when he was up and about.

Seeing the message read by the Captain, Tia sent an additional one.

If you have any questions, I’m up and in engineering… or can come to you.

Tia had signed off with her name and gone back to preparing the engineering bay for whatever was to come. She just hoped that there was a something to come… or go back to.

=/\= Your report was comprehensive. I don’t really have any further questions,” Glen replied, “but I can’t sleep tonight, so I could come down to Engineering and share some stories? =/\=

=^=Coffee is on…=^= Was the simple reply. An invitation obvious in its sending.

Tia
CE

Glen arrived about 10 minutes later. He was wearing the backpack again.

“I can’t sleep because of this thing,” Glen said, upon entering Engineering, “what’s your excuse? I need you wide awake and fully alert when we run this machine. But your offer of coffee was too good to miss!”

Glen, CO