Kaite flipped through a few images he'd taken of passing star clusters that were smeared by the slip-space transit. It was hard for him to imagine the tenacity of mankind and the thousands of years it took them to get to the point where they could escape just their solar system. He'd buckled up at his station through the landing procedures, although he didn't have much to do considering the lack of exterior threats and found it a good time to let his mind wander. The captain left at a point, an action he acknowledged with a glance before unbuckling himself to resume patrols. In all, the dead planet was woefully uninteresting if the whole 'unknown alien' theory was still on the table since the idea of teraforming the planet and leaving for later inhabitance was always on the table...[i]boy[/i] did he hope that was it. Just imagining shooting down colony ships of the invading force made his fingers itch. He didn't even have to be the first to fire a shot, just as long as he could have a few dead families on his hands... On the note of missing people, an interesting notification popped up on the HUD of his eyepatch of being the stand-in commanding officer. "Towan? You know why I'm asking..." He asked, receiving Sel's transmission through his earbud. He was about to respond before the static of the barrens overtook the signal, the signal having jumped out the cargo bay. He cursed himself as the AI read off the time and date that the captain had taken 'temporary leave' which left him essentially stapled to the ship as both the current active ranking officer as well as commander of the Infamous Alto's peronal guard. Kaite rubbed his temples, pacing back to the bridge and striding up to the captain's chair. Running his fingers through his hair, he sat in the captain's chair, crossing one leg over the other and giving the swivel chair a few spins, lacing his fingers as he closed his eyes to think. Taking a deep breath, he got up with a groan of a sigh, letting the chair spin itself to an eventual stop as he simply exited the bridge without a word, leaving a few of the observing members of the bridge in a state of confusion as they looked over action reports. [color=8882be]The doctor was more than enough for whatever the captain could get himself into. My duty was to the ship and the dead planet was just as inconsequentially distant as the floor separated from me by my boots. I hope he finds what he's looking for... I proceeded to eat my words as I opened the door only to face Katherine who grabbed me by the armor to lift me out of sight. [color=a2d39c]"What the hell is going on?"[/color] She hissed, walking down the hall with a grip on my webbing, keeping my inches off the floor. "[i]Nohzink[/i], and you should be at your-[i]huhnf![/i]" I begin to explain before she forced me against a wall. [color=a2d39c]"Don't give me that bureaucratic garbage! The captain pointed a [i]gun[/i] at me, and now...and now [i]you[/i] are the ranking officer?"[/color] I had no love for the woman, my hands going to her wrists...I knew seven different takedowns from this stance; Three of them, the nice ones, would leave her with broken wrists...we needed her...another three would also include an array of messily broken facial bones and [i]one[/i] would kill her almost instantly. "Iz [i]'business as usual'[/i] and zeh captain has left zee ship. My duty iz to [b][i]maintain sanity on zeh fucking ship![/i][/b]" I inelegantly hiss in a sarcastic tone just under a shout as I lace my fingers under hers that gripped me, bending her index and ring fingers to the point where she'd let go before releasing, letting myself drop to the floor with the tiny clicks of my boots. "Ask me a question, if you vill, [i]miss[/i] Sinclair, but I am [i]not[/i] some toy to be picked up and I [i]vill[/i] break your hands next time!" I bark, taking a few steps away before pausing. A gun pointed at her...by the captain? He may indulge in alcohol a bit harder than I would be able to, but he was a disciplined individual of integrity who had his own context and order taken from him by war incidents. We would be mercenaries if the strings weren't still attached to Ryland Senpai...[/color] [color=a187be]Here we go.[/color] [color=8493ca]Oh? This is new.[/color] [color=a187be]Look at her, she doesn't know what to do, but she practically knows how to do it all.[/color] [color=8493ca]...[/color] [color=a187be]Oh whoops, there's the coordinates to Ryland's position relayed to you by Sel...better do something.[/color] [color=8493ca]Who are you?[/color] [color=8882be]Before I could rationalize my own thoughts, I had already opened up the relayed layout of the hangar and local facilities which had pinpointed both the captain and Sel upon request. They weren't far. In truth, it would be easy to catch up to them...at least fast enough to identify their corpses before the atmospheric toxicity ate them away to mush...hopefully they were smart enough to bring suits. [/color] "Katherine...ehm...Kate" Kaite said, looking to the woman who glanced back, her eyes teary. "I am leavink to fix zeis mess and bring zeh captain back..." he simply said before pulling the resonator insignia from his eyepatch and tossing it to her. "...Zeh code is one-zero-five-seven...don't abuse it-" He said before pointing at her with a meaningfully apologetic nod before saying, "Kaite" And with that, he left towards the docking airlock. "Lost..." she quietly mused in response to his telling of his password, plugging the signature chip into her vox unit. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Kaite was in the process of suiting himself up in a layer of skin-tight hazmat material to cover his suit, making doubly sure, keeping his arms outstretched as the suit mod adjusted to cling to his setup. It would only be a short walk from the armory to the airlock where he intended to recruit a few soldiers to join him in his hunt. His determination would make him tricky to stop, though any were welcome to try.