Marcus was glad for the shower.  The sweat from the couple of fighter sims with his wing was getting to him and he was glad it was gone.  The last practice sim was the hardest.  His pilots were all talented.  Of the five pilots three had flying styles that complimented each other and two who meshed among themselves.  The issue was the two teams could mesh better. 

Luckily they’d improved greatly so he was confident they’d hammer out the issues in fairly short order and with more practice.  He’d also planned for a holodeck outing meant to be a team building excercize and a bit of fun to be had by the unit.  He also decided that he was naming Ensign Esessa Sh’ivhohlol as his number two. She was a member of the three but she was skilled, the most experienced and (Ming felt) utterly competiant.  It felt like the best route to go.  

In the meantime he had one thing to do before he wound down for an early night.  His parents were getting a rare afternoon off and had been able to arrange time off to meet with him, have a late lunch/early dinner and  to catch up.  He was glad for it as they’d not had more than 10 minutes to talk for any given week since the war started.  He hoped that the captain was right earlier about time off being rubberstamped.

He sat down at his desk and queued up the messaging system. He took a deep breath before beginning to type:

To: Commander Cheon Kyo, Executive Officer, USS Denver

From: Lieutenant Marcus David Ming, CO of Bravo Flight, 335th Squadron, USS Denver

Re: Leave RequestSir; 

I would like to request permission to depart for Earth on July 17th from 1200 hours tomorrow until 2000 hours Mountain time which corrilates the same date from 1400 to midnight.  I appologize for the shorter notice however my parents, both professors at Star Fleet Academy, were able to get time off to meet me last minute.  We have not had the opportunity to meet up due to conflicting schedules.  If this could be arranged I would be most grateful.  Again, I regret the shorter notice but I hope the request can be accomidated.  

Signed,

Marcus D. Ming.

The lieutenant sent the message with moderate priority.  He was tempted to send it high priority however he did not want to make it sound like an emergency.  While it was urgent for him it hardly seemed taht it qualified for something similar in terms of ship’s business.  

Ming yawned.  He was still a bit fatigued from little sleep for the past few days with the transfer from the Tucson to Starfleet Command then to the Denver.  There was a bit of a SNAFU that added an extra stop and more time to what should’ve been a simple and easy procedure.  War seemed to have that effect on occasion it seemed.  The fairly high energy training he’d been developing and executing did not help.   It was, however, something he felt necessary.  Keeping himself run ragged was counter productive especially since sleep would be an extreme luxury and, based on his experience on the Tucson, not one that would be common once they got back into the field.  

With that in mind he cleaned up to wash the sweat off from the day before heading out to the main area of his quarters.   He had some food and grabbed an old paper book to read while laying on his modest sofa.  His head rested on the pillow against the arm rest and he was asleep 90 seconds later.