Chapter 66: New Blood

Bradley was beat. From the time he arrived on the flight deck until the captain returned 22 hours later he hadn't taken more than a couple of short ten minute breaks. Then he had spent the following four hours overseeing the landing, de-con, and storage of over 40 ships. In addition, he supervised the docking of four cargo ships that were too large to land in the bay and had to be latched up to the side of the hull at the freight airlocks. This required an entirely different de-con procedure that he had to look up and execute, on the fly. He had ordered Deb and Maria to take breaks with the shift changes, but he stayed because he could sub their duties in their absence, but there was no one to relieve him. By the time the last ship was stowed he was out of it. Deb and Maria did the shutdown process and then led him back to their quarters. They didn't even bother undressing him, just dropped him on a bunk. He was asleep before he was horizontal.