We don’t know. He had been having a tough shift. As one of the senior engineering officers he is usually involved in resolving any simulator issues or command net problems and we had both in the eatlier part of the shift.
Then in the first mission, Lancer had an unusual degree of er… assistance, and umm… Guidance from division command in the sequence and selection of targets, rather than being given autonomy to handle a certain class of threat, which is the way she normally operates. Given that the Commander affords his crew a significant amount of leeway and responsibility for their own tactical duties, that left him very little to do. So he was about fit to blow a gasket.
Then, umm… we may have made matters worse. For the escort mission he asked us all to stay on our primary stations. Aposine was dog tired. He had arrived late for the shift after being stuck for hours in a disabled shuttle. He was hopped up on caffeine and stimtabs that were beginning to wear off. He expressed some concern that he might not be fit for helm duty. He hinted that a less directly lethal post might be appropriate. The commander ignored the hint fairly bluntly, but the rest of us fell over ourselves offering different choices of who could sit what station, despite the fact that the skipper had not requested our input. Truth is, none of us could fly as well as Aposine if he was asleep after a three-day bender, with one hand tied behind his back.
Eventually the skipper abruptly said something like “Sort yourselves out”. Then he left the bridge. I don’t know if he had been called away, reported sick, went on a temporary errand from which he could not return or what. Our XO Lt. Hall was busy with his ONI duties. So command fell on Lt. Das with Jr.Lts. Aposine, Finley and myself under his command. With help from Finley and with Aposine and I accustomed to working smoothly with them aboard Lancer, we were able to operate fairly well. Kudos to Roshin for being a calm and clear skipper. Chuck was probably a bit pushy with advicce but we all needed help from each other.