She looked across from the kitchen through the open door to where he snored, softly, then she continued making the breakfast. Her quilt had been tossed off and he lay there in the clothes he had arrived in, rumpled and scruffy. His exhaustion had caught up with him as she lead him away from the diner. He had been staggering, words slurring though she knew for a fact that he had drunk only coffee. When they got to her place he had not so much laid down as collapsed onto her bed and was snoring before his head settled onto the pillow.

Dee sighed and dialed in the coffee to dark roast. Normally she had tea but she knew that Mike used coffee the way a station used strontium. The snoring caught and stopped as the scent of the drink permeated the small apartment. He had rolled over onto his back and his eyes were just barely open. He blinked at the ceiling and swore. “Dammit.”

Dee blanched and stepped back a hand over her mouth.

“Oh, dammit all to the Hels” He said, just barely audible and then closed his eyes and thumped his head on the pillow as though berating himself. He took a deep breath and then paused . . . “Um” He looked confused. “think think think”

Dee almost giggled as he said it exactly like one of the characters from her childhood stories. But she was still too distraught at his obvious displeasure at finding himself here, in her bed.

“What is the last thing I remember?” he said in a confused voice.

****************************************
Lessons

What you say and they hear can be worlds apart. This is very important in voice chat/vent/TS/whatever. If you are in a fleet you have to know how they want information sent and when it is time to shut up and pay attention. You know it is you speaking and in small 3 man crews it might be fine to chat away. In big fleet ops you are just another voice confusing the issue.

Scouts: Name yourself or better, the system you are in “R-MOD report, 5 reds, none on the gate, one arbi on d-scan”
FC’s if you have more than one team, name them. “Squad 2, move to next system and wait for orders, orbit gate till moved on”
as opposed to “we got a lot of company here!” and “you guys, lets go . . . “