Mission 3

[Amanda Rose]

D'Val submitted his PADD with the usual somber
attitude born of repeatition. Seemed all he did these
days was work, eat and sleep. He sighed heavily not
really seeing the office that replaced him and headed
out to the turbo lift.

"Time." he muttered to himself seeing his quarters
door open, its lighting dark and cold. The night, an
unwelcomed visitor from a far off land. Solar kept up
his usual tirade of insults and better-then-thou
speeches.... D'Val thought it was getting to him.
Even though he generally ignored the man he thought he
could feel a part of him felt dirty.

Taking a shower helped, a little, and D'Val headed for
the bar. It was after his duty shift and they were
unlikely to call upon him any time soon.

"Paula, right?" D'Val asked as he sat down at the bar.
She nodded once before pouting at him as she saw the
look in his eye.

"You need a pick me up." she said, her brown eyes
missing nothing and proceeded to pour him a light
greenish liquid into a tall glass. Taking it he
swallowed half of it before the burning brought tears
to his eyes.

"What is that?" he asked covering his mouth so he
didnt cough all over the bar. She smiled at him, a
lock of her black hair falling over her left eye.

"Its call a pick-me-up." she said cleaning another
glass. The second sip he took was better, his throat
numb from the first. "You will feel better in a
little bit. Had anything to eat yet?"

"No." he said shaking his head and looking out the
forward window. Somewhere on the ship chaos reigned
and D'Val thought he should care, but he couldn't
bring himself to..... not right now. "It will be what
it will be." he said.

"Alrighty then, I will just order you a little
something before you get sick." Paula said ordering
something from the chef.

"We try so hard and sometimes it makes no difference
at all." he muttered as he refilled his glass from the
bottle she had left. Behind his back Paula raised an
eyebrow but didnt say anything. She knew from many
years of experience when to say something and when to
keep quiet, it was a gift.

"So many lives lost because of something we believe
in... false hopes of changing the tides." he went on
for a bit watching the slow turn of earth below them.
Then it vanished before he even realised anything had
happened.

"Hopes all we have sometimes." Paula said picking up
her que. "What would life be without it, certainly not
a place I would want to live." she finished cleaning
the glass and sprayed down the counter then poured
another drink.

"To Hope!" she said toasting the moment, a slight grin
on D'Vals face as he refilled his glass for the third
time and toasted with her.

"To Hope, and the future!" he said and drank half the
glass sitting it down a bit unsteadily. Just then the
chef came out with what smelled like a hamburger and
french fries.

"The midnight snack!" he proclaimed proudly and D'Val
felt his mouth water.


===> TAG if anyone wants to join the drunk.

[Amanda Rose]

Ben was monitoring the power transfer when he noticed a power drain in the environmental systems. He attempted to correct the imballance by diverting power from the impulse manifolds but it wasn't having any effect. The life support power levels had dropped through seventy five percent and were picking up in rate of decline. Old Stonewall wanted to take down the America with him.

He tapped the communications command on the console. "Captain O'Connor, the transfer is pulling power from life support. I'm attempting to compensate by drawing power from non-essential systems but its not having any effect."

<TAG>