The Captain waited for me by the door, he closed it after I had left the room.

“Commander, did you upset the Colonel?” He asked, we hadn't started moving back yet.

“Well… I don’t think I did. He seemed rather stern, but not really angrily so.”

“Hmm, it must’ve been something else then, he seemed to be in a hurry.”

“Maybe he has space sickness?” I suggested. “Those military police types don’t often come aboard space stations, do they?”

“Huh.” The Captain stared into the hallway, presumably in the direction the Colonel had run to. “I suppose that could be true…” He then looked back at me and smiled. “Let me get you back to your crew.”

“That’d be appreciated.” I nodded.

We walked the short distance back to the infirmary hall, where the guards opened the door back up to me.

“I’ll come for the next person when the Colonel and the Rear-Admiral are ready again.”

“Of course, you’ll get our full cooperation.” I saluted him, to which I quickly got one back in return.

When I walked back in, I saw that Yuki had joined Eva and Luna at the table we were at before. They were all looking at me, to be fair, the entire room was.

I walked up to them and gave them a big smile and sneaked in a quick wink to my girlfriend.

“That took quite a while. We were getting quite worried.” Eva remarked.

“I just did my story the best I could.” I nodded. “Let’s just hope the interrogation won’t last as long for everyone here, otherwise we’ll be here for quite some time.” I looked around at the others. If everyone had to endure that time alone with them, then we’d be here for multiple days. As much as our navy peeps outside are hospitable, that’d still not be a very fun time for any of us. “Anyway, how are you doing, Yuki?”

“I’m doing quite well, Commander. Sorry that I’ve not really been interacting with you much the last couple of weeks.”

“It’s understandable. You’ve been hanging out with the hangar crew more?”

Yuki nodded.

“It’s pretty natural for the bridge crew and hangar crew not to mingle too much. It’s almost the opposite side of the ship, after all.”

“I know… but I don’t want to look ungrateful. Since it was you who brought me on board the ship.”

“I don’t need to talk with you on a regular basis to know that you are grateful for that, Yuki.” I laughed.

“If I recall from their files, the hangar crew has already served together for a long while, right?” Luna asked.

“That’s true.” Yuki nodded once more. “They have been making me feel very welcome, though! From the moment I came aboard.”

“Great to hear.” I peaked around Yuki and saw the other officers from the hangar bay looking at us. I gave them a smile before returning back to the conversation. “As for the rest of the interrogations.” I continued. “The Captain is going to come and get the next person once the interrogators are back in business. I just hope the Colonel doesn’t have space sickness for real, though. That might make this entire deal even longer.”

“Space sickness?” Eva butted in. “Why do you think so?”

I explained the situation to Eva, who then quickly asked if I noticed a bunch of symptoms.

“I guess it could be space sickness… Hmmm…” She didn’t say anything and walked over to the door, giving it two knocks.

One of the guards swiftly opened, after which a mostly inaudible conversation followed. After a minute or two of explaining something to the guard, she turned back to us. “I’ll be coming back in a few, okay? I’m going to go with one of the guards to go check on the Colonel.”

I gave her a thumbs up, to which she smiled and left the room.

“What’s Eva going to do?” Luna asked.

“I presume she’s going to practice her Hippocratic oath.” I replied as I shoved some snacks in my mouth. “She’s still a doctor, after all.”

While Eva was gone, the conversation turned back to the interrogation. Both Luna and Yuki listened very attentively. When I had gone over everything, of course not in minute detail, Eva still hadn’t returned and the table went quiet.

It’s not like we couldn’t keep each other good company, but the environment didn’t really lend itself to conversation that easily. To be honest, I was getting quite bored. Not even a single bit of music playing in the background, just a slight humming from the air vents paired with the sterile white walls… I caught a couple of the officers glancing at the beds that had been shoved to the sides. When they saw that I had seen them look over, they looked a bit embarrassed.

I coughed and raised my voice so the entire room could hear. “If any of you want to take a rest, I don’t think anyone will mind. We might be here for quite some time, so make yourself comfortable.”

A couple of the people I had spotted earlier blushed, but then took up my advice nonetheless, taking up a couple of the beds. Not necessarily to sleep but just to rest a bit.

“The same goes for you two, of course.” I directed myself to Yuki and Luna once more.

“I’m fine.” Luna almost immediately rejected my offer.

Yuki on the other hand, did seem rather tempted.

“Yuki, don’t worry about us.”

She blushed a little. “A-alright. Then I guess I’ll go and find a place to lay down.”

“Have a good rest.” Luna said with a smile.

“T-thanks.” Yuki walked off, in the direction of one of the other hangar officers who’d gone to lay down and picked the bed next to them.

“Just the two of us now.” I said to Luna. “It’s a bit of a shame I can’t really hug or kiss you at the moment.”

Luna blushed. “Th-that’s true… it would definitely help with the boredom…”

I smiled. Luna had been thinking the same thing.

“Sadly, there’s no broom closet for us to sneak into.”

Luna’s blush grew even stronger. “Y-yeah.”

I continued teasing Luna for a bit longer, as it helped quite a lot to combat the boredom that had snuck up on us.

I was enjoying it so much that I didn’t even realize Eva had entered the room again. Her tap on my shoulder almost made me jump up in surprise.

“Holy shit. Eva. What the fuck. Couldn’t you have said something first.” I put my hand on my chest.

Luna had started laughing quite badly.

Eva joined her in that. “Hi, I’m back.”

“Why did you stay away for so long?” Luna asked, trying to get her laugh under control.

“Ah, I’ll explain, but first off, we are allowed to leave now.”

That’s when I noticed that the Rear-Admiral and the Captain were standing behind Eva as well. I quickly regained my composure and saluted both of them.

“At ease, Commander.” Rear-Admiral Ngoie smiled. “As Lieutenant Winter said, you and your crew are free to go. But before you do. I do need to inform you that your crew will be put on administrative leave for the time being. You will be notified ahead of time when that status will change.”

“Thank you for the information, Rear-Admiral.” I replied.

“All the information will of course be sent to your personal holo sticks.” The Rear-Admiral saluted us with a smile once more and then turned around to leave the room.

The Captain did stay behind. “I am here to escort you to the shuttle bay with my men. Please tell me when you are ready.”

The room quickly started to become quite noisy. The air filled with a sense of excitement. “By the sound of it, I’m pretty sure we all are.” Even the people who’d only recently laid their heads down for some rest had regained their energy.

“Alright, then please follow me.” The room quickly emptied and followed the Captain outside.

It was only a couple of minutes of walking to get to the shuttle station, it did require an elevator ride down to the bottom floor, although that was also but a trivial ride.

The shuttle was already waiting for us.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Commander.” The Captain saluted me.

“Likewise.” I saluted him back. “I hope we meet again some day.”

“Likewise.” He copied my reply with a smile. He then stepped back so that we could all enter our shuttle.

And just like that, Luna, Eva and I were seated next to each other on a shuttle back to Earth.

“So…” I looked at Eva, who sat on my right. “How the fuck did you manage that.”

“I’ll keep it short.” Eva started as the shuttle began to move. “The Colonel was in fact suffering from space sickness. I took some medicine from the doctor’s office and gave him some. That helped relieve him of most of his ailments for the time being. He was pretty grateful for that. We then decided that we might as well do the interview afterwards. That went pretty smoothly, I just mainly affirmed what you had said before.” Eva took a second to breath before continuing. “As the Colonel was still not feeling 100% and the fact that I had confirmed your entire story, he decided that it was rather pointless to spend the rest of the day taking off interviews.”

“Did you just manage to make him break protocol by doctoring him?” I looked at her with a curious smile.

“Look, I just have my charms.” She shrugged with a grin.

“You surely do…” I then looked over to Luna. “Looks like Eva just made our little vacation start quite a bit sooner.

Luna smiled and gave me a nod, putting her hand on my thigh. “I’m looking forward to it.”