Where the others might've had concerns, nervosity or fears about the mission ahead, Gregory was too mind-numb to think about those things. He had preoccupied himself with drinking a few more beers once the scribe and knight had buggered off, before retiring to his chambers to retrieve his Atomic Annie sledgehammer. Then, the soldier retrieved his power armour, thanking the mechanics for taking care of it by giving them a hard slap on the back and a resolute “thanks, wrenchman,” before testing the armor by moving the arms around, seeing how well they rolled. There were a few hickups in the armour -- to be expected when you were using mechanisms that were at this point old enough to go into a museum -- but it wasn't anything that Gregory couldn't brute force his way through if the need arose. The same went for the legs. Once this final checkup was done, he made his way outside towards the hangars, and sat down on a crate, spinning his sledgehammer while everyone else slowly trickled in from whatever they had been doing. They were quick to take flight after paladin Moss had given them a last second briefing on the hangars, and this was part of the process that always scared McDowell. McDowell was a man that wasn't easy to scare -- throw a hundred ghouls at him and he'd call it a party. A quick job before moving on. Supermutants? He'd be glad to rid the world of those freaks of nature. But sitting in a metal deathcage hanging from a thin piece of metal they called 'mechanical arm,' that never sat well with McDowell. Unfortunately landing the Prydwen was a massive pain in the ass, a pain in the ass they weren't really meant to repeat, so this was really the only way off the slightly bigger metal deathcage apart from jumping. It could be done with power armour. [i]But it would not be a fun trip down for the rest of the squad.[/i] For once, McDowell shut the hell up and simply listened, or at least feigned to. Paladin Moss's words were about all he picked up, and he leaned in to take a look at whatever he was showing them on the device he held, but at that point most of it was lost on the man. They hadn't invited him for his spectacular technical insight, so it was probably for the best that McDowell wasn't in a talking mood, lest he had pissed off every member of the team instantly by making fun of how they read books. Most of all the doctor. McDowell had had very limited run ins with her, and he preferred to keep it that way. She was good at her job, he thought, so it wasn't [i]that[/i] that made him wary of her. It was the fact that, unlike most other scribes and technical personnel on the Prydwen, Gregory had quickly gotten the feeling that she might actually be able to hurt him if he mocked her a little too much. Small woman, compared to Gregory. But a whole lot of fire behind those eyes. He respected it -- fury of a knight trapped in the body of a scribe. The same could not be said for the others on board. Rather than participate in the discussions, Gregory looked out the side door of the vertibird, peering into the distance. The color of the sky was changing there, and it reminded him of home. [i]It wasn't,[/i] he knew, [i]not anymore.[/i] He had seen those lights thousands of times before, peering out the window of his shitty shack when he still lived here. But he didn't tell anyone -- not for fear of 'being found out,' more so than it just not occurring to him. The lights might've scared or bewildered the others, but it did nothing to McDowell save give him some nostalgic feelings. He was eerily calm by the time the others caught on to the fact that the air was changing. It wasn't just the lights, it was the air, the scent and taste of it was permeable in the cabin. The rad-lights came on, and the T60 power armour Gregory was wearing turned on it's rad-light too. Again, Gregory was unimpressed. What might've seemed a typical stoic reaction from soldierman Gregory to the rest was, in actuality, just his innate awareness of their location, and survival instincts kicking in. “Hmph,” was all he could muster before reaching upwards for a leather strap to keep him somewhat steady. He knew the vertibirds were janky, but that they were this janky, he had no idea. All it took was a sudden surge of a rad storm into the engine, and they were going down. The ship shook left and right and it seemed like they'd freefall their way down, which would've been fine for Gregory since he was wearing power armour. Unluckily, during one of the jerkier movements of the vertibird, he was slung to the right, the leather strap he was holding onto breaking and sending him barrelling off after paladin Moss and the rest of the unlucky passengers. Some of them, at least. He closed his eyes, braced for impact, hoped he'd land on his feet so the power armour could work it's magic. The weight of the power armour did the trick, and he landed feet first, the power armour catching the entire force of the fall and then some. Unluckily, the blast of the landing caused whatever shit-shack he landed in to collapse around him. He opened his eyes briefly, trying to see what happened, but all he saw was darkness, and all he heard was the beeping warning sounds of the power armour. Something had gone terribly wrong. The mission was over before it even started. He closed his eyes again. Dying in this yellow-green field covered under destroyed building would be as good a way to die as any. He was out for a few minutes, maybe, although 'out' was perhaps not the best way to describe it. He was conscious, but elected to just lay there and wait. The sudden shift of the rubble and a familiar face behind the visor of the T60 power armour that pulled him out of it was enough to revitalize the soldier. “Paladin Moss,” Gregory said, “good to see you here,” he jested. [i]It seems the paladin has need of me yet,[/i] Gregory thought. Perhaps not [i]all[/i] was lost, but just the vertibird and half their crew. But Paladin Moss gave no answer. Had Gregory even managed to speak, or had he just made noises? Moss disappeared again, and Gregory closed his eyes again. When he came to, Moss was dragging him, and his heavy power armour, all the way to a nearby structure. Gregory did what he could to 'help', trying to push off against the ground and start walking himself, but it seemed that the landing had really shook him. For once, this wasn't something that Gregory could just shake off. He needed a moment -- a long moment. “Just give me a second, Paladin, I'll walk myself, I'll help you find the re-...” Out again. He came to a second time, this time due to the yelling of one Daniel. "Yelling." It was little more than a regular conversational tone, but the headache Gregory had made it infinitely worse. The constant cracking of the radiation, and the annoying beeping of the radiation meter in the power armour did little to help that. “Hey kid,” Gregory said, sitting up and awkwardly rising to his feet, doing his best not to let the power armour fall over with him inside it. “Shut the [b]hell[/b] up.” Gregory scanned the area around him, and found that his sledgehammer had gone missing. Maybe it was still in the vertibird, or maybe it was lost forever. He shook his head, but that only made the headache worse. “Where's the Paladin?” he said, in an angry annoyed voice, despite Daniel having just given the answer to the question already. He didn't wait for an answer, and stomped outside, the power armour kicking up dust with every step. During the walk, Gregory noticed the power armour wasn't functioning as well as it should've either. It still [i]worked[/i] but the mechanics were probably going to chew him out for real this time. Usually it was just a complaint, “whe whe, Gregory keeps breaking the joints by forcing them,” but it was nothing they couldn't fix. But this seemed a little worse than a forced joint. The entire thing just kept throwing up red warnings in the visor that Gregory had no idea what they meant. He ignored them. He thumped his fist against his chestplate when he had found paladin Moss, and bellowed as loudly as he could, “Ad Victoriam, Paladin Moss!” He really only made his headache ten times worse, but he found that paladin Moss didn't need to know that. Nor the fact that his weapon was gone, or the fact that his power armour had gone to hell. All of these things made him less combat effective, or so the officers claimed, and it was wholly possible that Moss might've decided to make Gregory sit the next part of the impromptu search and rescue mission out. No, Gregory wasn't going to do that. He'd do his best to make sure that Moss knew he was going to put everything on the line to finish this mission. “Knight-Sergeant McDowell ready for orders, sir!” God, his fucking head hurt.