3:25 pm Earth time.

In a ship that never sleeps, morning is relative. Different crews work different shifts, and at any given time there are both people getting up and going to sleep. Even so, somehow, Yusof had a reputation of being up before everyone else. Legend among the crew says that he only sleeps two hours a day, and even then, he's just waiting to get up and start again. The morning routine worked like clockwork, the same every time, without exception. 3:25 PM Earth time, wake up an hour before the rest of this shift is suppose to be up. 3:30 PM, jumpsuit on, teeth brushed, chops combed, cassette player acquired. 3:40 PM, off to the showers, usually empty at this time, good place to stretch the vocal cords with a song or two. 3:55, Breakfast, whatever the ships cook had made at the time, but always with a side of boiled chicken and ice water. 4:12, best part of the morning, off to the gym. A rigid health regime must be kept up with using daily exercise, the training for that day depending on the day of Yusof's own home made month long regime. At this time, the [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtnW8w3e-7Q]music[/url] comes on as well, the cassette player is almost ancient, but it's something from home. Plus, it helps pump iron. 4:40 After outpacing everyone else in the gym for almost half an hour, it's time to go to work. 

By now most of the rest of the shift are up and on their feet, albeit in a bit of a zombified state. Back to the crew quarters and to the lockers, Yusof suits up. His own TR-76 compatible suit, hard space rated canvas connected with light titanium plates around the shoulders, crotch, and boots, covered in a set of jump webbing. Light enough to move around comfortably, but still durable and space rated. Sidearm strapped to his hip, helmet under arm, Yusof heads to the HFV bay whilst the stay ready message comes through on his personal comm. He'd almost immediately return the ready report with a green light as he steps onto the elevator leading to the HFV bay. As the elevator descends, he spies his own suit out of the bay through the open elevator scaffold. A proud and old machine, just like him. It stood shoulders above most other suits in the bay, nearly maxing out it's maintenance bay's capacity. The vast machine bore a number of livery and decals on it's dull base red paint. The numerical designation 76-JM-4231 plastered proudly on it's shoulders, the decal of a tiger on it's right arm, a thunder cloud raining missiles painted on the left side of it's Zhavda pod, the 'Mechanical Encumbrance Indicator" text jokingly painted under each knee, indeed every piece of art, livery, and even the technical decals were all more than well known to Yusof. It was something he took pride in, in his own way. He stepped off the elevator as it stopped at the deck and paced through the center of the HFV bay. Mechanics went about their busy work as Yusof made his way to the empty bay 12, an unused location where some of the HFV crew had taken to as a casual location whilst ready conditions required them to be on deck.

Here was Levi, sitting astride a milk crate before an old ammunition dolly turned makeshift table with a set of playing cards strewn about it in a game that had been going on for days. Yusof made his way opposite this 'table' and sat on a metal camping stool wherein he leaned forward to observe his game, requiring no exchange with Levi as he did, this was a regular affair. As he settled in and reached forward to take his turn at the cards, he spoke.

[i]"You get the ready message? Sounds to me like we've shown up finally! Unfortunate, I was going to win too."[/i] He'd say, as he gestures to the cards. He spoke with his deep Russian accent, smoothed over by years of working among English speakers, and spoken in perfect English.