Silvio's Shore Leave "
By: Giuseppe Silvio, Chief Engineer, [RNPC]

Stardate: 58207.28 1100

Silvio removed the Jefferies Tube hatch and started climbing. He counted the junction nodes as he went by and stopped at node six. He carefully opened the node and set his took kit and an iso chip container on the ledge. They were completing minor upgraded to the Zion's computer core today. It was a bit unnerving to see the core inactive but they had shut it down to comlplete the upgrade. The Zion;s mission critical function were being regulated by the Station's computer.

Silvio opened the iso-chip container and began adding the new chips to the junction box. This was likely to be the last of the upgraded scheduled for the Zion. Harry had decided to do the core upgrade at the last minute after gettting a ugrade buliten from the Sovereign design team.

It was mind numbing work that Silvio could have assigned to someone else, however, today Silvio wanted to be alone and actually welcomed the work. It gave him a chance to reflect on the last month. It had been a busy month for Silvio, but a prodictive one. On top of the Zion repairs and upgrades he had met Patia's brother and his family; and had started seeing a counselor at the station about his nightmare problems. The result of which, had been him being able to actually get some sleep at night.

Silvio had not mentioned seeing a counselor to Patia, anthought he was almost certain she knew. While she was aware of his nightmares about the Kittyhawk, he had not gone to see Patia about it in an official capacity becasue he did not want to cause her any type of ethical conflict, plus she was on vacation.

Silvio continued to slide the isolinear chips into their sockets. Patia's brother had been his biggest surprise. He expected a hard nosed security chief but it turns out that he was actually a pretty nice officer who actually cared about the men under his command. Silvio had to respect that. Silvio had been worried at first, because he had received a note from a couple friends with whom he had served with in the past to warn him that someone had initiated a background check on him. Silvio coul dnot blame Michelio if he had done a background check on him. If he had a sister he would likely do the same thing.

Patia's sister-in-law was great. Trina owned a flowershop and had helped him surprise Patia with a large flower order. It was a great surprise. Patia also had two nephews and one niece. He could see how much she loved them and in fact, they loved her, althought, Patia wasted no time in showering them with gives from "Autie Patia". Silvio believed that Patia took it has her mission in life to spoil those kids. She was good at it too.

The whole excahnge with her family has been a wonderful new experience for Silvio. It made him think much more often about his own family. He had no brothers or sisters, only his parents. He had not heard from them in a very long time, in fact, he did not know if they were still even alive. It was a distressing situation to be sure. If he knew how, he would pay to get them smuggled out of the Federation. He missed them very much.

Silvio sighed as he inserted the last chip. He resealed the iso-chip container and closed the node. He began climbing again, only 25 more nodes to go.