Adrian vaguely acknowledged Silver as the catwalks swung in on his battered GEAR. He sighed and found a step ladder he used to descend to the floor of the bay and removed his helmet. The damage to his machine had forced him to use his rifle for navigation and accidentally muzzle sweeping everybody in the vicinity repeated times hadn’t helped his mood, which, evidenced by the matted mess of his fur and his canyon ridge of a brow, wasn’t the happiest he had ever been.
“Sheesh, what’d you do out there?” the lead technician asked him, “Strap a bomb to your forehead and headbutt them?”
“Yeah, actually,” Adrian drawled as he leaned forward and clipped his helmet onto his piloting suit’s belt. “We went into a mine and some fuckers decided it’d be funny to rappel from the ceiling and stick mining charges on my armor.”
“Looks like it held up pretty well, then.”
“I guess… Probably a huge mess under the armor, though, and I’m gonna need the head replaced.”
“Ah, that’s no big deal, we’re just happy to have some work. It gets boring around here.”
“Be careful what you wish for, man.”
As he exited the hangar, Adrian headed for the infirmary. He felt obligated to check on Kuraiko, since he had been in ‘his’ team at the time. He was determined to give the kid a piece of his mind, but the thought withered as he reflected on his own performance. In hindsight, it was pretty dumb. Can’t lecture people about the basics if you don’t follow them yourself.
But by the time he made it to the infirmary, Kuraiko had already left, and nobody seemed to know exactly where he went. It wasn’t the bed quarters, the mess hall, the gym, or any other useful place to be on the cruiser. The time stretched on as he sought hints and directions from others aboard the floating, magnetic landship, until, at long last, he emerged on the top, outer deck.
“Oh, finally,” Adrian muttered as he spotted kuraiko near the top of a small flight of stairs. “Flat on your ass to flat on your feet. You sure that’s healthy?” he asked as he appeared beside him. “Whatever. Anyway, you didn’t miss much. Th’ Captain decided it was a good idea to bring our GEARs into the mine, we got blown the fuck up, you know. It went about as well as you might think, but, fortunately, nobody else wound up dead. Everybody’s turning in now, so we should meet up with the Captain for our debriefing. ”