[color=lightgreen]"Well, that went better than expected."[/color] Trapp muttered softly to himself. He had been prepared to go over and calm the situation as needed but McKnight handled it well. The young man had a tendency to surprise him on how easily it all seemed to come to him. He had the potential to become a career officer high above his own pay grade if only he could buckle down and deal with the bureaucratic BS. A feat of mental constitution that Trapp himself could never muster. He didn't have the patience to sit at the big armchair and listen to a man in a suit tell him how to do his job. That's why he had denied any offers of promotion over the last few years, sometimes the rank isn't worth the hassle

After making sure there was no more altercations and everyone headed towards their respective vehicles, the new squadron leader made his way over to his own vehicle. He had fallen into the same boat as the Rookie in the case of their machines. His old machine was nothing more than a smoldering pile of rubble, and resources being as stretched thin as they were the engineering core did not have time to make a custom made model just for him. And so he was currently piloting old reliable herself the PTX-051 Sentry MkII M. Not that he really would complain in the manner his own machine was a modified Sentry more heavily optimized than the mass produced model and he started his piloting career flying simulators built around the MKI schematics. The sentry had been with him for most of his fourteen year career in the UEE and he could probably fly one of them in his sleep if he needed. Though it never helped to make a few minor adjustments to make things run a little more smmoothly and keep him alive. 

Standing at the base of the vehicle he looked up, the view he got never did cease to amaze him. He had slaved through years of training just to get a chance to even look at a MAS let alone pilot it. The view he got as a rookie touched him the same way it did at that moment, a sense of awe and self-accomplishment it made up for all the paperwork and other tedious tasks that he had to put himself through. He would go through a million after battle reports, inventory itineraries, squad meetings, procedural reviews and even basic just to be able to seat inside of a MAS. Despite being the child of a diplomat and a business heiress their jobs and lives never really did appeal him. Office work and talking didn't save the world and maybe his work didn't either. But at least it felt like he was doing something and not just sitting by and doing nothing. Or at least that was the lie he told himself to be able to sleep.

But the view also conjured up new feelings that once did not lurk in his mind. A deep chill arose from the small piece of metal in his breast pocket, as it seemed to drive the heat from his body. It was like a specter long forgotten having risen from its grave. The piece was all that the salvage team was able to recover from the ambush site. It was the last testament to the 2nd Mobile Armored Strike Team as he knew it. He'd lost people before, but never like that. He'd served for the better part of a decade and then some with most of them, they had become the brothers and sisters that he had never got to have in his own life. They were all fresh recruits when they started and they grew together. They all knew it could of happened, he just never imagined that it would of. That was partly why he was taking his new position with baby steps. He knew what it felt to lose somebody. Hell, he honestly couldn't even blame Astelion for his actions. 

[color=lightgreen]"And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee"[/color] He said out loud not noticing if anybody heard, not that he would care at that point. His hands shook slightly as his mind wandered through memories of plasma, screams and gunfire. Taking all the mental willpower that he had at the moment, he manged to get a smoke out of his pack and into his mouth. Soon the metallic sound of a lighter creating a spark and then the sweet release as smoke filled his lungs. The blackness acting like a great angel draping its wings upon him, relieving him of his pain. He had never smoked before he started as pilot, but like many other he had taken too it soon afterwards. Everyone needed a way to cope, to be able to calm the nerves, to forgot. They all had their indiscriminate vices.

[b]"Uhhh sir?"[/b] A voice called to him and finally he snapped out his stupor. A member of the maintenance crew looked at him with puzzled expression upon his face. Trapp apologized and asked for the man's cliboard marking all the changes that needed to be done. The commander having piloted more than a few sentries in his life could pretty much recite the average day to day maintenance protocols required on them from his head. As much as they were deathtraps as much as anyone was concerned they maintained well and from model to model required adjustments did not vary that much. He made several notes on the page adjusting capacitors, heat sinks compressors, readjusting the sensitivity in the right arm all to exact amounts and finally to cycle the Quad-Core at least once to let it flow properly. He finished his notes and signed off at the bottom with a neat little scribble. The member of the maintenance team give the notes a look before nodding and walking away. They always appreciated the older pilots, they had less of a tendency to bother them and did not run as many test runs.

After this he looked around and noted that everyone had for the most part finished their inspections and were either talking among themselves or spending some alone time. Though judging from their lovely captain's own deposition above them it would seem that orders were about to come in. He didn't have to have served on the ship for that long, all of the upper brass had the same look on their face whenever they were delegating news. Before that could happen though the rest of the squad had to gather and so Trapp called out loud cutting through the sound of machinery. [color=lightgreen]"Alright everybody form up, orders are about come in! You know the drill! A line in order by some sort semblance of rank. Make sure your uniform are on straight, and you look as bright eyed and bushy tailed as you can fake! Oh, and Williams word of advice! Don't blink, Captain Marquis can smell your fear!"[/color]