The 11:30 hours arrived. The Beyond Light and the three Soku vessels glided at 600’000 kilometers from Vita Nova, trying to pass unnoticed should unwanted visitors arrive.
Free of any hangover, John moved to the bridge to start another day, wearing a clean black uniform of golden margins. He felt as if their night of drinking had put 200kg of weight off his shoulders. Mike and Jeffrey looked refreshed too inside the dark cockpit, except that they had prominent eyebags and yawned once in a while, making him do the same.
“What a night it was, right, Commander?” asked Jeffrey, doing the routine system check-up every morning. John noticed the pictures of his wife and child pasted next to his terminals. “I don’t remember what happened after Sergeant Williams and Doctor Winslow arrived.”
“Yo
