Date Point: October, 10y10m2w3d AV
Crzlrfek System, The Freedom Stars
Warhorse
…
…
…Taste of blood. Texture of pain. World gone gray.
Alive.
Warhorse always wore one of the maximum doses of Crue-D in the same place, ready to grab on muscle memory. There was nothing coherent going on between his ears but his hand did its thing anyway. The needle-prick in the flesh of his side was completely lost under the agony ringing through his limbs, but somehow just the act of injecting himself was enough to restore something like functionality to his fried neurons.
Vengeance.
Highland was moving too, slowly. He was winded and stunned from his collision with the wall from where Warhorse had thrown him clear across the room, and pawed groggily for his rifle as the Hunter swaggered into the room. One of the big ones, the Red Hunters. Skinless studies in warped musculature that had raped themselves with metal.
It thought it was in no danger.
Warhorse wasn’t quite running on instinct and wasn’t quite thinking fully either. He was somewhere in limbo between the bloody howling rage of an ape and the dispassionate judicial arbitration of a judge. It didn’t matter either way: he had no weapon in his hands, but right now he neither needed nor wanted one.
He charged.
He grabbed.
He squeezed.
He enjoyed.
Every little pop. Every little gasp and struggle. Every grinding crunch. The slippery squish. The creak, snap and stretch. The twitching, the spasms, the gurgle… The kill.
He let go of the hunter’s body and lifted its torn-off head so that he could stare it in some of its glassy dead eyes. “…’s what you fuckin’ get for… messin’ with…“
Fuck it. Fuck words. He slammed the head flat-palmed into the nearest wall, crushing it almost flat in the process and covering the wall and himself in exploded gore. He grunted, braced himself against the deck, pushed forward with his full strength and ground his palm into the mess, until the wall and floor were dented beyond repair and the skull was no more. Something deep inside him approved and drew an apelike rictus grin across his face. He snorted in contempt, left the sticky bits of bone and brain to slide down… and the tide of adrenaline rolled back to leave him stranded high and dry on cold dark sands.
He dreamed of gunfire, and somebody calling ”Man down!”
Date Point: October 10y10m2w4d AV
HMS Sharman (HMNB Folctha), Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Lieutenant Kieran Mears
Letter for notes,
RE: Miss Ava Magdalena Ríos
This troubled young lady, who has special access to DEEP RELIC and was involved in Operation EMPTY BELL, returned to my clinic today for her third session. She is struggling with PTSD and suicidal ideations.
Today she was well-groomed and appropriately presented. Her mood today was objectively low but she made good eye contact and states that subjectively today was a “good day”.
Overall she is still feeling generally low and she states that she still has suicidal thoughts. Her flashbacks have not improved but she felt able to describe them in more detail today.
Her flashbacks are clearly vivid and realistic, and entail “clear visions” of blood, death and personal peril sometimes including smell and taste. One detail she described as being particularly disturbing was that she can “taste Vinther’s blood on the air”. Master Sergeant Roy Vinther was KIA during Operation EMPTY BELL, and she went into morbid detail today about the exact manner of his death. She continues to have difficulty sleeping and reports that she often has vivid dreams that wake her up.
She expressed concern today that she is prone to risk-taking and spontaneous behaviour, though she denies any criminality or drug use. When asked what form her risk-taking behaviour takes, she talked at length about her romantic history. She describes that she was unfaithful to her long term partner of several years and expressed remorse for this. She denies being sexually promiscuous, and states that she has only had two sexual partners. She says she is “not ready” to seek a new partner yet. I do not agree that she takes inappropriate risks or engages in self-destructive behaviour, and I suspect she is simply guilty and confused.
She told me that she has asked her best friend to supervise her as she takes her medicine. When asked why, she explained that she “hates” taking the medicine because it “Forces me to think about stuff I don’t want to think about.”
Considering her suicidal thoughts, I agree that it is probably sensible for her not to have immediate access to her medicine.
I have reassured her that her Paroxetine will improve matters, and she understands that she should not expect immediate results. Considering the severity and realism of her flashbacks I have raised the possibility of animal therapy, for which she expressed considerable enthusiasm. She says that she “really would like” a therapy dog, and I will see whether we can start the process of applying for one.
I will see her again in two weeks or on an emergency basis.
-Lt. K Mears Counsellor, HMS Sharman
Date Point 10y10m2w4d AV
Command Station 1053 ’Linchpin Of Infinity’, Orbiting Planet Vetrin, The Orin Line
Fleetmaster Garal
“What class of ship is that?”
“They call it a ‘destroyer’.”
Garal forced herself not to shudder. In the Loc’ language, the word for “destroyer” was a guttural, terse thing that neatly conveyed the brutality of the concept. It was somehow fitting that deathworlders would designate a ship class that way.
It looked like a force of destruction, too, to a degree that offended her sense of aesthetics. This was not a ship built to look glorious: it wasn’t a flying monument to pride and wealth. It was a shovel-nosed black lump with a shuttle riding piggyback on the flat expanse of its back, next to a tower structure that was most likely its bridge.
And it was small. Against the scale of dock designed to accommodate war platforms, the destroyer had elbow room aplenty.
Her second-in-command was a Vgork shipmaster by the name of Selag who, like Garal, had been forced into the echelons of higher command by sudden vacancies. The loss of his left arm during an Alliance raid hadn’t made a good case for his remaining in the field either. He was experienced, and she needed that experience.
“Suddenly, I am very glad they are on our side…” he mused.
Garal made a nonverbal noise conveying misgivings. “You do know the name of this particular destroyer, do you not?” she asked.
“No…?”
“It is called Violent.”
Selag made a rumbling noise deep in his chest that Garal’s translator implant flagged as an expression of feeling off-balance. “Violent, Destroyer… Are they bloodthirsty, or just unsubtle?”
Garal didn’t comment.
“I’ll receive them in my office,” she declared, and turned away from the window.
“As you command, Fleetmaster.”
Date Point: October 10y10m2w4d AV
HMS Valiant, Orbiting Planet Vetrin, The Orin Line
Colour Sergeant Robert Murray
“Hello sergeant. How are you feeling?”
Murray shrugged noncommittally. “Bloody thrashed, but alive,” he said. “…How is he?”
*Valiant*’s chief medical officer, Doctor Moorman, glanced at his infirmary’s only patient who was rather too large for his bed. “Sedated, but conscious. One of the awkward side-effects of Crue-D, while you chaps are on it you’re all but impossible to put under… though considering that we’d have lost him without it, I can live with that.”
“Can I have a wee word with him?”
“Of course.”
‘Horse on meds was almost guaranteed to be amusing. He aimed a big thumbs up and his largest, most goofiest smile as Murray joined him. “Heyyy, bro.”
“You are an absolute fuckin’ madman, you know that?” Murray said affectionately and sat down. They locked hands in a brothers’ handshake. “And I’d be dead if not for you, so… thanks.”
‘Horse grinned and waved it off in the happy, high way of a man who was dosed up to the gills. “‘S what I’m for.”
“Is that right? Throwing me right across the bloody room is what you’re for is it?” Murray chuckled. “We should use that move in gravball sometime.”
“Yer talkative…” ‘Horse observed, and laughed. “Wha’ve you done with the real Murray?”
Murray laughed with him, but after a few seconds they sobered.
“…Am I in trouble?” ‘Horse asked.
“Nah pal. No. But I had a merry bloody time of it in Hotwash going over our helmet cam footage. D’you remember what you did?”
“Yyyup. The whole thing. The explosion, my patient getting killed, the grenade… ‘s weird, I always thought after Nervejam stuff was supposed to go fuzzy… You, uh… you saw what happened next?”
“Mmm. I saw.” Murray’s fitful dreams that night had revolved restlessly around the expression he’d seen on his young comrade’s face, even through the visor, as he’d got the Hunter in a sleeper hold of all things before screwing its head off as slowly as he could.
‘Horse had the decency to look uncomfortable, and he seemed to be sobering quickly. Moorman was right about Crue-D versus sedatives. “I… shit, man.”
Murray did his best to put an arm round the younger man’s shoulders, and made it slightly more than halfway. “I been at this even longer than Stainless,” he said. “And…Ye’re not alone. Okay? Every poor bastard who stays in this business long enough comes up against their dark side one day.”
“…You always seem so calm.”
“Mm-hmm. Ice in my veins. Scares the shite right out of me.”
‘Horse hung his head and sighed. “…I shouldn’ta enjoyed it,” he said. “That’s their thing. I don’t wanna be like them.”
“You’ll never be like them, you giant fuckin’ womble stomper!” Murray told him, and was rewarded when the unconventional insult raised a small amused snort. “You feel bad about it! They never will.”
“Makes me wonder, though…”
“Of course it does. But we do what we do so other people don’t have to, mate, and we look out for each other. I canny throw you across a fuckin’ room, but…*Ack!*”
Adam could hug hard enough to crush oil drums, but he usually never forgot it. This time was an exception and Murray felt his joints creak before Adam remembered himself and eased off a bit.
“…Sarry.”
“‘S’okay…” Murray had learned the hard way that when Adam wanted Hug, Adam got Hug, and there was no way out except patience.
Or the intervention of a higher authority in the form of a nurse. She knocked on the door to get their attention and gave Murray a not unkind look that asked him to leave. “My patient needs to rest, Colour Sergeant.”
“Like fuck, I feel fine!” Adam objected.
The nurse was having none of it. “Standing orders for nervejam trauma is that you remain under observation until you’ve had an MRI.”
“How the fuck am I gonna fit in an MRI machine?”
The nurse just shrugged in a ‘not-my-problem’ way.
Adam sighed and let go, and Murray stood up. “Here and now ye’re alive, pal,” he reminded him. “Plenty of time to talk about it later.”
“…Right.”
“If it’s any consolation, I’m stuck here too. Crying shame.”
“Yeah? Why?”
“Because I really wanted to see the Fleetmaster’s face when Stainless delivers the good news…”
Date Point: October 10y10m2w4d AV
Command Station 1053 ’Linchpin Of Infinity’, Orbiting Planet Vetrin, The Orin Line
Fleetmaster Garal
Garal didn’t need to be alerted that there were deathworlders outside her office. They shook the deck just by walking, heavy, purposeful and strong.
She pre-empted the inevitable request and called her aide. “Send them through, please.”
“Um… that, is, uh, Fleetmaster, they-”
“Now, please.”
“…Yes. Yes, Fleetmaster.”
The door opened, and four humans walked in.
She’d never seen a human in person before, but they were at least pleasantly easy to tell apart. Their facial features varied quite markedly, their skin tones ran a wide gamut, and between those factors plus variations in the hues of their eyes and hair she-
A severed head landed on her desk, shattering her train of thought.
It belonged to a Celzi, and Celzi were much harder to tell apart than humans. If not for the weak flicker of a dying translation implant that was still trying to tell the world who its owner was, she never would have recognized Warmaster Trez Ekrat.
Very, very slowly she reeled in her stunned thoughts and managed to get them into something resembling order. They came unstuck again when two more humans, both much larger than their fellows, squeezed through the door carrying what was obviously the main databank from a facility-sized computer installation, rack, power supply and all.
Its metal feet squealed offensively on the floor of her office as they put it down and pushed it into the corner.
And then they just stood there. Waiting.
Garal took her time to ensure that she was properly balanced and calm before she tried to react. She moistened her mouth and, quite delicately, pushed her chair back from the desk and the grisly trophy upon it.
“…What is this?” she asked.
“The man himself didn’t survive being collected,” the human in front said. He had a deep voice that was more growl than speech and the translator clipped to his chest absolutely suffused the voice it created for him with menace and short patience. There was something badly unnerving about those cold, bright blue eyes that had locked onto her and were watching patiently for her to… twitch. Run away. Make a mistake. Whatever they were waiting for wouldn’t be good for Garal. “But his implants should still have some useful data.”
“This is not… quite what I had in mind.”
“No? Well that’s too bad.” The one who was apparently the leader stepped back from her desk and tucked his thumbs into his belt. The easy and relaxed poise of the stance was precisely the opposite of reassuring: it said ’there is nothing here that I could not destroy.’
He looked to one of the larger men beside him. “Rebar.”
The ridiculous anachronism of a paper hard-copy folder slapped down on Garal’s desk. She picked it up and opened it. The humans had at least been courteous enough to include the information-dense machine code that translator implants used as a textual go-between. It allowed her to assimilate all of the information on the page instantly.
The report was succinct, technical, efficient and impossible. A chain of orbital defense satellites destroyed, a ground installation smashed, a Hunter Broodship destroyed, several thousand Hunters killed. High-Value Target neutralized, intelligence recovered and critical infrastructure destroyed. The Crzlrfek system completely neutralized as an Alliance base of operations.
Cost: Two humans wounded.
There was an itemized bill detailing the number and value of all the resources expended right down to the gram of deuterium reactor fuel.
Garal tried to reclaim some authority by standing up, founded on the fact that she was bigger than even the biggest of these deathworlders. Yes, they all could have torn her arms off, but sheer size surely had to count for something. The correlation between size and dominance was a near-universal in xenopsychology.
“How?” She demanded.
The human’s scouring gaze didn’t waver. “Classified.”
“Whatever you did, if the Dominion learned your-”
“No.”
“It would save lives.”
The human snorted and reached out to flick one of the head’s ears with his finger and what Garal took as a distasteful expression. “Whose? His? Poor fooker was just doing his job, just like us. No, Fleetmaster. Our methods are classified and even if I was inclined to consider sharing them, which I’m not, I don’t have the authority.”
“…I see. But was it truly necessary to drop… this… on my desk?”
“It was, yes.”
“Why?” Garal felt like she was being yanked through the conversation.
The human smiled slightly. It went a finger’s width up only one side of his mouth without touching his eyes at all, and was not a friendly or happy gesture. “In my culture we have a warning, Fleetmaster,” he said. “It goes *’be careful what you wish for; you might get it’.*”
“I don’t remember asking for a severed head on my… What is your name, anyway?” Garal finally managed to haul herself back into what she hoped was control of the conversation.
“Stainless. And his head was always going to be somewhere, Fleetmaster. That’s the bloody point of sendin’ us to kill him, he ends up dead. We thought it might be worth remindin’ you of that. Good day.”
Garal sputtered as they turned and left her office, an oozing body part and a one-tonne rack of computer equipment at the end of a trench of wrecked flooring. “What? No, you can’t just-!”
“We expect full remuneration of our net expenses within thirty days. Good day.”
“No, wait!” Garal stormed to the door and pointed at her aide. “You: Stop them.”
“Uh…” the poor Vzk’tk thus addressed watched the humans thump purposefully out the door. “…I beg your pardon fleetmaster but… *how?*”
The door closed behind them, and Garal ran two of her hands over her scalp while the other two planted themselves on her hips—a gesture of being totally at a loss.
“…Contact battlefield forensics and have them send up a team to my office. And, find me another office to work from until mine has been sanitized and repaired.”
“Of course, Fleetmaster.”
“And if I try to ask humans for help ever again, I want you to talk me out of it.”
The Vzk’tk blinked. “…How, Fleetmaster?”
Garal spun back into her office. “Remind me what happened this time,” she snapped.
Date Point: November 10y11m1w AV
BGEV-11 ’Misfit’, Interstellar deep space, near the Border Stars
Allison Buehler
Deep space travel had its own slow rhythm, and adjusting to that rhythm after months of constant scheduled activity was a challenge. They all knew how, of course, they’d all been there before… but once the daily work routine was out of the way, the ship cleaned and maintained, the laundry done, their meals prepared, their bodies exercised and their chores complete then the only two ways left to pass the time were education and entertainment, and they all hated the education side of it.
All three of them were hands-on, learn-by-doing types and Allison had surprised herself with how well she had picked up the academic component of *Misfit*’s needs. The desperate determination to not fail Julian and Xiù had driven her to achieve things that her high school teachers would never have imagined, and she’d done it all for them.
But now she had to learn their jobs, and they had to learn hers. They just couldn’t afford to be exclusively specialized because no matter what their personal feelings on the matter were, the Group had made it clear that ’just in case’ anything happened to one of them, the others would be able to get home.
Which meant that whether they liked it or not, they’d learned each others’ jobs to a basic standard. Julian and Allison could fly the ship, Xiù and Julian could handle simple maintenance and the flight power balancing, and Allison and Xiù could both work the sensors, telescopes and drones.
They all had the basics down, they’d never have taken off otherwise. But their in-flight training time was supposed to be about digging into the academic minutiae of other’s’ jobs, and all three of them were struggling, and were thus feeling frustrated and incompetent.
They weren’t, demonstrably so. But the more they studied the more clear it became that they really had been well-assigned. Julian and Xiù seemed convinced that *Misfit*’s engineering was more fragile and hazardous than was really the case, neither Xiù nor Allison had the temperament for memorizing hundreds of different kinds of rock and how to identify them from orbit, and Allison and Julian were both far too heavy-handed for *Misfit*’s spirited controls.
They were also forcing themselves into working shifts, and that was coming with all sorts of problems because they’d grown used to sleeping in one warm snuggle. The pattern of two awake and one asleep just didn’t work for them at all, because the sleeper invariably complained of feeling alone or cold. None of them were sleeping well, except when they caved to temptation and cuddled up for an unprofessional triple nap.
Difficulty, frustration, restless sleep and a dash of guilt were a potent blend for irritability, and that meant little fights.
Never anything major. Never. Things were always a calming word or a hug away from being completely soothed over and forgiven. Indeed, theirs was overall a happy ship… but not perfectly so.
Perhaps the weirdest sticking point was between Julian and Xiù though, and they managed to wake Allison up over it.
She was jolted awake by the sound of Xiù demanding “But why not? It’s fun!”
“I know, just…” Julian made an exasperated noise. “I don’t want to.”
Xiù didn’t look happy at all, so he closed the dishwasher and hugged her. “I’m sorry bǎobèi, I know I’m being dumb, but it just makes me uncomfortable.”
“Fine…”
Allison glanced at the clock. She’d been asleep for five hours, and she decided that was enough. She hauled herself out of her bunk with a sigh. “You two okay?”
Xiù gave her a good morning kiss and got her breakfast out of the fridge to reheat in the oven. “It’s nothing important.”
Julian did the same and poured her an orange juice. “I’m just being cautious.”
Allison accepted the juice and drained half of it in one slug. “About what?”
“I said ’yes sir’ and it made him uncomfortable,” Xiù explained.
Allison gave Julian a quizzical look. He had a mild sub streak, which meant that he’d always enjoyed being bossed around by the two of them and never quite seemed happier than when he got the chance to say ’yes ma’am’ and be praised with the words ’good boy’. It was a harmless game, but now she thought about she and him had never reversed their roles.
“Why?” she asked.
He shrugged helplessly. “I dunno. Maybe I… I dunno.”
“Spit it out, dummy.”
He sighed. “I guess… maybe I’m more comfortable having my boundaries pushed than I am with pushing yours,” he said, gesturing to both of them.
“Even if I want them pushed?” Xiù asked.
“Yeah, but.. How far?”
Xiù didn’t seem to have an answer to that one. She frowned thoughtfully and turned her attention back to the oven.
“Baby, the whole point of pushing boundaries is you don’t know how far you want them pushed,” Allison pointed out.
“Well, this is one of my boundaries too and I don’t want it pushed,” he said, firmly. “I’m sorry.”
Allison’s hand landed on Xiù’s elbow just in time to pre-empt the word ’but’, and she shut the question down with a slight headshake. Xiù hesitated, then nodded and she and Julian kissed and made up, to Allison’s relief.
“I’m… gonna go check the exoplanet scan,” he declared lamely, and let himself out.
Left alone, the girls exchanged awkward shrugs, and Allison used the bathroom and the shower then ate her breakfast with her hair still damp. She had to admit, the shorter cut was far more convenient than wrapping it up in a towel. She pretty much just had to scrub it and leave it.
Xiù sat down opposite her. “Is he mad at me?”
“No! No.” Allison put down her fork. “What gave you that idea?”
“He just seemed really uncomfortable.”
“He was, yeah.”
“I didn’t mean to…”
“It’s okay, dummy.” Allison smiled for her. “He knows you didn’t.”
“I just… don’t understand why.”
Allison nodded and picked the fork back up. “…You know, I had to deal with some real assholes back in Boston,” she said. “Before I was taken. Guys who wanted to park me on the back of their bike. Like, I woulda been property to them, you know?”
Xiù nodded and listened.
“They were so fucking insecure. They’d get into fights over fucking nothing because their precious little princess egos couldn’t handle the least little disrespect… like, say, turning them down when they made a pass,” Allison scoffed. “…and they never wanted the ’little girl’ fixing their bike either. And trust me, having a guy like that angry at you is… it’s scary. That’s why I started carrying.”
“*Āi ya…*”
“Yeah… Well, Julian’s confident and calm, and that makes him more of a man than any of those shitkickers. He doesn’t need to be the boss dog. And… You know how he sees himself in this, right?” she asked, spiralling the fork to indicate the three of them.
“How?”
“He’s here for us. I think he’d be perfectly content in his grampa’s house trapping beaver and shooting geese all year for his whole life… But what he really wants is to make you and me happy.”
“Yeah, but….” Xiù’s signature blush was a rarer sight nowadays but it came back strong. “…I mean, in this case…”
“You want him to call you a ’good girl’ ‘cause that’d make you happy?” Allison teased. “Kinky. Do you want him to spank you too?”
“*Allison-!*” Xiù was now crimson with fierce embarrassment.
Allison laughed and waved a hand in an apologetic gesture that was anything but apologetic. “Well, you’ve told him. Maybe he’ll come around, maybe not. There’s some things you can’t force. See, the whole ’yes ma’am’ thing just… happened. Naturally. We didn’t sit down and plan it, I never asked him to say that, that’s just how things played out. I like it, and… I guess I’d feel weird saying ’yes sir’ to him.”
“So I should wait and see, and be prepared for in case he doesn’t ever want to play that game with me,” Xiù summarized.
“Pretty much. Sorry, baby. But hey, at least you can yes-ma’am me, right?”
“Yeah but… um…” The blush had begun to fade, but it rallied magnificently. “…It’d be even hotter with him. Sorry.”
“I can handle ’even’ hotter…” Allison gave her a witchy grin. “Just so long as it’s a little hot with me.”
“…It’s hot,” Xiù confessed.
“Good girl.”
Flustered, Xiù cleared her throat and bustled to tidy up an already-tidy kitchen, and Allison ate her breakfast with a victorious smile. She was scraping the last of it off her plate when Julian returned looking pleased.
“Good news?” Allison asked him.
“Got a strong contact. Nitrogen, oxygen and water, right kind of star, right kind of orbit… It’s a bit out of our way, over toward the Near Three Kiloparsec Arm about a week away, but it looks good!”
“A temperate world!” Xiù grinned.
“Probably. Misfit gives it sixty percent.”
“Man, Creature of Habit went its entire mission without seeing one,” Allison recalled happily.
“Our telescope’s better. Much better.”
“It’s the BEST,” Xiù joked, and beamed when Julian and Allison both groaned.
The Brahe Exoplanet Survey Telescope lived up to its acronym and then some by relying on enormous force-field lenses rather than glass ones or a parabolic mirror. It was so incredibly sensitive that although it couldn’t actually produce an image of planets orbiting a distant star, it could certainly detect that some light was being reflected by those planets and even hazard an informed guess at their atmospheric composition… and it could do so a few hundred times a second.
It also looked nothing like a telescope. It was a flat panel about the size of a thin mattress that recessed neatly into *Misfit*’s dorsal hull when it wasn’t in use.
“She’s adorable, isn’t she? Just wanna… bundle her up and lock her in the store room sometimes.” Allison snorted. Xiù stuck her tongue out at her.
Julian laughed. “I thought maybe we should go check it out,” he suggested. “I already fed it to the pilot’s console…”
“You need to practice setting destinations anyway,” Xiù told him, and pointed toward the cockpit. “Go on.”
Julian nodded and chuckled. “Yes ma’am.”
“Good boy.”
He looked so much more comfortable.
Date Point: November 10y11m2w AV
HMS Sharman (HMNB Folctha), Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Lieutenant Kieran Mears
Letter for notes,
Re: Maj. Owen Powell
Major Powell is a regular in my office, and continues to struggle with feelings of isolation and loneliness. He states that he has “basically no” social life as he cannot relate to civilian men his age and while he likes and gets along well with his fellow officers he does not feel able to describe the relationship as a friendship.
He states that he often feels envious of his men for their camaraderie, and wishes that he could be closer with them. He describes the social highlight of his week as being “gravball” training sessions.
He has a romantic partner, who is a pilot with the 946th spaceflight wing, stationed on Earth. The relationship is therefore a long-distance one and he states that in his opinion, neither of them are ever likely to put their career second. He denies begrudging his partner her career, but does state that he would like to see her more often.
Objectively he is a taciturn man and his mood has always been difficult to read, but he claims to feel generally euthymic. He made good eye contact and smiled appropriately so I feel that his self-assessment is probably accurate.
I will see him again in three months.
-Lt. K Mears Counsellor, HMS Sharman