2352-APRIL-15
Eventually the long night ended. Francis showed up right on time at 05:45 and smiled in sympathy when he saw me. “You holding up?”
“Kinda. Not as bad as I thought it would be. I got a lot of studying in.”
He looked uncomfortable at the mention of studying, so I added, “You did me a favor with the bookmark thing, you know?”
He raised an eyebrow.
“If you hadn’t set it to spec one, I’d still be slogging through spec three and wouldn’t have even thought about leapfrogging a rating.”
“Well, I still feel bad. I thought sure you’d have caught the file setting as soon as you brought up the lesson.”
“Hindsight, eh? I should have. I’ll never make that mistake again, but you were also right about me being distracted. There was a lot going on then. Are you ready to take this on?” I jerked my head at the console.
“No, but it’s my turn.”
“All ops normal, Mr. Gartner. No maintenance scheduled or performed. You have the watch.”
“I relieve you, Mr. Wang. I have the watch. And keep an eye out for the girls this afternoon. They’ve got something up their sleeves.”
Laughing I headed for my bunk and a few stan’s sleep before I found out what it might be.