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At some point in the evening, Tony had removed himself from the table and retired to one of the couches in the room. The couch faced away from the group, and it hid him quite well from the rest of the crew as they continued to shout and play strip poker. By now, he was shoeless and shirtless - and for a time, he had almost been pantless, but he extricated himself from the game with more skill than one would expect from a man as drunk as he. His head swam in a fog of too much whiskey and whatever else had been circulating the table. The room felt like it was spinning in circles, and Tony was suddenly viscerally aware of the fact that they were in a metal can hurtling through space - it was, to say the least, disorienting. And so he stared up at the ceiling, hoping that either his body would purge itself, or he'd drift off into some sort of a fitful slumber.

Tony grew closer and closer to sleep, but he was rudely and suddenly awaken by a voice echoing inside of his head. That alone was startling enough that he pitched forward slightly - not enough to come into the crew's line of sight but enough that he almost fell from the couch. Of course, he couldn't place the voice at first. It wasn't until he heard it mention him that the pieces began to fall into place. When Rae spoke, he managed to finally understand that Ren had spoken - or perhaps "speak" wasn't quite the word for it. How wonderful it was that she'd found a way to communicate, and yet Tony couldn't help but feel the faintest twinge of sadness as he finally forced himself to sit up and face the rest of the room. He heard Ray from across the room address him, but it took some time for Tony to fully process the captain's words. Still, he nodded and slowly dragged himself to his feet before crossing back towards the table. The intensity of the situation hadn't yet hit him, for instead of attempting to formulate some sort of plan, he simply waved a hand back at the room and shuffled down the hallway towards his quarters.

[hr]

In his younger days, Tony had been blessed with an almost unnatural ability to recover from the effects of drinking faster than his compatriots. Even now, he still recovered more quickly than one would have expected from his dulled behavior the night before. For the past ten minutes, he'd simply stared up at the ceiling, his body feeling too fatigued to move. He still wore his pants from the night before, but his footwear and shirt remained missing in action. His mouth was dry as hell, and he could taste the cigars from the night before in the back of his mouth. A light pang of hunger gripped his stomach, but it was followed by a gentle wave of nausea.

[color=ff7733]"Tango..."[/color] he grumbled, noting the robotic arm that had begun to reach towards him. The pain of the injection itself was enough to almost force up his dinner from the night before, but after a minute, he slowly removed himself from his bed and rubbed at his eyes. And then he remembered. He remembered Rendyl "speaking", remembered Ray asking him to investigate. Tony pushed himself off of the bed and shuffled off to brush his teeth and shower.

By the time he'd dressed again, he felt more at ease, but the hunger pangs were growing in intensity. The crew also seemed to be waking for the day and checking in over their respective comms. At Astrid's comment, he also tapped on his comms.

[color=ff7733]"Still standing,"[/color] he remarked, pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand. [color=ff7733]"Might have to take you up on the offer of tea."[/color] He paused, looking over at the books in his room. [color=ff7733]"Ray - if I recall correctly, we have a feq questions to answer?"[/color] He considered picking up a few tomes, but in all honesty, he didn't even know where to begin. Perhaps once they'd done some narrowing down, he'd be able to find some appropriate readings. As he moved out of his room and down the hallway, Tony began to fall into more of a natural stride than his earlier shuffle. [color=ff7733]"But first, that tea."[/color]