Ari had carefully tended to the affairs of the Lincoln's crew as needed since the incident in the hangar. She had found some limited solace in assisting them as needed, initially she ferried supplies but soon she found herself co opted to assisting in the repair and maintenance of damaged MAS and Aerospace fighters. It turned out someone had heard she had a degree in Aerospace Engineering and figured she may be able to help with repairing the airframes, once given some on the job training. As ever, the girl once called a prodigy took to it with little issue, helping restore damaged craft to operation status. She found it helped some, working with machines, it made it easier to forget, if only for a time, the memories of shaky adrenaline rushes filling her in the cockpit, of MAS suits vanishing in a blast of plasma.

However, no amount of work could save her from the nightmares. At "night", she'd oftentimes find herself accosted by altogether unwelcome faces. The faces of enemy infantrymen and pilots, gunned down on the ground by the Astelion's eye lasers. They'd charge at her, howling for righteous vengeance, and every single time Ari would cry out, drawing her service pistol and firing, trying to hold them back. Every single time, she'd find that just as the herd began to thin, when it seemed she had hope, she'd see the gleaming visage of the Astelion above her. Its plasma cannons would heat up and fire, and she'd awake as the blast of heat wiped out the encroaching horde and the heat would wash over her. With her nightly rest thusly undone, she found she needed a project to dedicate herself to, as well as more active pastimes.

She found both in different places, thankfully for her. A pastime was found on the training deck of the Lincoln, where she practiced the infantry tactics and skills she'd learned long ago as part of training for the 101st with the aid of the Lincoln's marines. Despite her own misgivings concerning herself, she found she was at least accepted, if perhaps not welcomed, by the men and women of the Corps. She trained with their weapons and combat armor often when she'd run out of maintenance work on the pipeline, and it helped take her mind off things, to focus on something simple like the raw math for a perfect shot grouping, or the mostly harmless adrenaline of running an assault course with the Marines. It didn't help her sleep at "night", no Marines trained during her sleep cycle, but it was something to do during the "day".

During the frequent times when sleep was stolen from her by nightmares, Ari would sit up and do something productive with that degree of hers. At first, she'd called up the specs of the Astelion and began thinking of an upgrade package for her, little things like how to squeeze in an extra millimeter of armor without impacting speed or how to reduce the charge time of the cannons by one tenth of a second. However, finding those improvements didn't help, only calling her mind back to the time she spent in that very MAS, and the bloody work she'd wrought within it. Instead, then, she found herself working within untested territory for herself, trying to design a new MAS. Progress was understandably slow, of course, as designing the frame for an MAS was altogether different from designing any other Aerospace craft. However, at least progress was being made, and it gave her something to eat away at time. Perhaps one day it'd be a good enough design for submission to some such production firm to consider creation. For now, however, it was little more than a thought exercise and half-formed blueprints laying on the bunk she ostensibly slept in.

Of course, it didn't take long for the maintenance men she would work with to note her lack of sleep, or indeed the Marines she trained with either "[color=00a651]Listen Ell-tee, you need to get sleep when you can, you'll never get enough otherwise.[/color]" They'd say, or "[color=0054a6]Now listen, I know I'm no pilot, so far be it from me to judge ya, but shouldn't ya get some shut eye? Ya got bags under your eyes the size of the Lincoln![/color]" Everytime, she'd reply with a "[color=0072bc]Thank you for your concern! I'll try to get more sleep.[/color]", and everytime she'd at least humor them by attempting to sleep, if only so she wouldn't be a liar, but the outcome was always the same.

By the time they were docking at the FEZ, it had dawned on Ari she hadn't come into contact with the rest of the squadron overly much since the hangar bay. It wasn't quite that she was consciously avoiding them but...well she didn't want to bother them. She was just The Rookie, the green-as-grass pain in their ass they didn't want to be bothered with. Astelion said as much every time he got the chance, and Ari most assuredly believed him, though she didn't want to do the asshole the service of telling him that. No, she'd just quietly remain in her proper place, assisting maintenance, training when she had the chance, and working on her project. She knew they probably didn't want to have to deal with her any more than they had to, that Maki and Gerard were likely just being polite and tactful in their kind treatment of her, or perhaps worse they treated her thusly because they believed her a child to be babysat, not a pilot or even a pain in the ass to deal with.

Yes, she was rather sure it was one or the other, and she didn't much care for either option. So, she would ensure she was there when they had to do battle, as was expected of her, but until then she'd try to remain out of sight and out of mind, at least for now. She'd also come to another resolution, that she should request a transfer out of the 7th to a different squadron. That would leave them down a machine, to be sure, but even that had to be better than babysitting a rookie. As the ship's loud speakers announced the all-clear to board the FEZ station, Ari decided it was a good time to discuss this with the Captain. As such, she went in search of her, supposing correctly she'd be near one of the vessel's airlocks. This didn't surprise her, what did surprise her was seeing Maki right beside the captain as well. Biting her lip, Ari hurriedly turned to flee from the pair before either noticed her, pulling out her 'pad to submit a request for a meeting to the captain, noting her consideration of a transfer in proper military notation, electronically, as opposed to the in-person request she'd planned. It was less ideal, to be sure, but that was alright for the moment. After all, she had the whole time they were in the FEZ to get the transfer request submitted and approved, and from there she could leave behind the Lincoln, the 7th, the Astelion, all of them before the Lincoln's next combat deployment. Perhaps they'd resent her for it, perhaps they'd be grateful, perhaps they'd not even notice until time came to deploy. No matter what though, surely they would be glad, glad to finally be free of the troublesome rookie that had plagued them since Cerol.