Bernard finally understood that he needs a breathing space. This great idea came to him when he woke up at the sofa in the command room of Samothraki the second time with the prints of the plates the touchscreen; with a coffee stains all over the panels and another one oh his pants; with a quite evident smell of the 30 men in the crew of the ship that lost its shower cubicles in the unpleasant meeting with some people in the nearby system; with a feeling that he had hardly been resting well because of being stationed at the Tau-29 jump hole for three days in a row; with no clean clothes left; with no fresh food or alcohol on board; and finally with the wake up call from Tomoe-san who wanted to know if anyone is still alive here.
The best sign of being alive is the feeling of pain. Bernard’s head hurt because of few sleep; his neck hurt because of sleeping in the wrong place; his lungs hurt because of too many smoking; his stomach hurt because of the supper that was not as good as expected and he generally wanted a bath and a massage.
Good news here, - he heard from the comm, - we got a ZDF wing to replace you here.
Bernard said something not articular enough to understand, thought a second more, answered something proper, stand up and elbowed the navigator to gesture the direction to Shasta Orbital Skyhook.
First of all, he had a best shower he ever had; then the best three-minute noodles became the best dinner he ever had; he also never wearied such a nice jacket, such a comfortable shirt and such soft and tender shorts. Finally he left the room, left a sack with quite specific smell in the laundry with a warning note about threat from within and walked in the direction of Club Discordia he hadn’t visited the last time he was at Shasta with a couple of unexpected guests. In the hall he was of his guard and nearly ran into someones else guard - he didn’t noticed the person that dozen of two meters tall guys were surrounding.
Finally, the Club. A horse at the bar wasn’t surprising, so he just passed by looking for someone he had already seen with a bottle of vodka borrowed from someone who borrowed it from bar yesterday. Borrowing something from a place is a good reason to come back, you know.