Her eyes were scanning the entirety of the bay, trying to identify each and every face that seemed familiar. Nothing. Seeing that everyone was getting involved with unpacking and moving crates around, she also moved in to help with whatever she could; it would be better if she did something, rather than just standing eerily still in the middle of the hangar. It would help push back the mounting self-degrading emotions. Some time passed, she couldn't tell for how long she's been pushing, pulling and hauling stuff around, but at last, the colonel assembled several small groups and gave them all tasks. She tugged at her own clothes, making sure they would all neat and tidy even after doing a bit of grunt work, but otherwise, she seemed mostly absent-minded. It took her a second to realize that the fox was looking straight at her. She didn't catch exactly what he wanted from her, but her intuition told her he wanted to talk to the BGen, Benjamin Harper. She blinked twice and nodded her head deeply before she gestured the colonel to follow her.

"Sir." She muttered.

[i]Keep it together.[/i] She scolded herself as she turned her body to face the doors leading to the main corps.

She kept her mouth shut for the majority of the trip, all she did was to walk down the familiar corridors among other racing officers that interrupted everything they were doing to salute the colonel and the major as the passed by. The arrival of the "black sheep" stirred the hive quite a bit, mostly in the logistics and administration department, as they were tasked to handle resources, refitting, refueling and upgrading the GEARs. As for the rest, they were split in two categories: those who actually couldn't care less and others that thought the arrival of the Parvan's Claw is a bad omen. As for Major Archer, she wasn't interested in opinions and logistical nightmares, all she cared about was to fulfill her new duties properly. 

Her mind was empty, as she vehemently pushed back flashing images of a certain figure, as she would nearly gasp every time she would glance over some random individual and see his face instead. It was as if her brain wanted for him to just pop out of nowhere, to have some sort of closure. She was too busy focusing on her psychological nuisance to try to converse with the red fox; while she was sort-of glad to see this one bloke alive and well and still one eye short, she couldn't find the strength to smile and properly welcome the officer back home. They had free passage for the most part of their walk, but the last corridor leading to the map room had a blast door that required a special sort of permission to gain access; Patricia stopped in front of the blast door and turned left, where there was a paper towel dispenser and a sort of device with no buttons visible, indicating that it most likely had a touchscreen of some sort. She pulled one towel and proceeded to wipe the tip of her nose, which she then planted against the touch screen; the device came to life and photographed the tiny imprints, crevices and buds, which then searched its database to look for a match. Soon enough, the device beeped and the door's hydraulics hissed as the thick block of metal slid up into the ceiling, revealing an eerily white corridor with a black stripe running down on the floor straight to another blast door in front; just as they entered, a couple of guards popped from left and right to do a final check on the two officers before they would admit them. Patricia sighed after the whole ordeal was done and wiped her nose again with the other side of the towel before she threw it in a rubbish bin discreetly placed on the left side of the corridor, a bin just as white as the corridor that made it nigh-on invisible. The final door that lead to the map room was also rigged with a nose-print scanner and a paper towel dispenser just next to the device. Finally, the feline turned her head to face the colonel.

"Like what they've done with the place? With the recent development of - certain situations - they've upped the security on the compound; back when you were young" she purred with a fiendish smirk, "this facility wouldn't receive top priority tasks so often." 

"But ever since we've sniffed North and South activity dangerously close to our borders, Antaria Flats suddenly became an important outpost. You know what that means? That means your timing is quite spot-on, Silver. You'll be given some high-end upgrades and then they'll send you off to do some mid-to-high priority task with your new equipment. And I'm your super-secret supervisor, as if you'd be thoroughly surprised by that." She scoffed, rolling her large eyes. 

"Brigadier General Harper's been awfully proud about our upgrade, not to mention that he found a vicarious side to him. Our work is his success and that's the way it is. Other than that, he's still the same slow deer you know." 

"All those aside, though, it's good to see you're in one piece, sir. Well, I mean the 80% that's still left of you." She smiled, for once in a long time, as her eyes rolled off his face and behind him, almost seeing someone one inch taller and with a brownish fur coloration. To her dismay, no one was there.

"Shall we? I'm pretty sure he saw us coming through the cams. Yeah, we've got cameras almost everywhere now."