Unlike how he usually was on a longer mission—that is, to say, completely nonplussed about the job ahead—Derrick was actually fairly intrigued by the job set out in front of him this time around. An Alvadian research facility was seldom a place to visit without any reason, and most of them had likely been stripped of anything valuable by this point in time. In other words, being sent to visit one and [i]retrieve[/i] something meant that there was just as likely a chance for something equally valuable waiting besides their quarry.

That being said, if it was a simple retrieval mission, then they wouldn't have needed to ship a team out in the first place; beinging [i]him[/i] along meant that injuries were to be expected. Neither was a sign of anything good, but a clean job was rare, and safe, rarer still.

Derrick had spent the last hour reading—a familiar pastime since his younger years—but the announcement from the [i]Blue Lily[/i]'s pilot swiftly brought him to attention. The young man wordlessly slipped his bookmark between the pages of the book he had been reading before setting it aside on his bed and standing up. Without any sort of flourish or fanfare, Derrick took a hold of his bag and promptly left the room. It was, admittedly, rather empty—other than his tools, most of the empty space was reserved for seeing what else he could... 'Recover' from the site beyond their objective.

With deployment imminent, Derrick raised his hand as he walked towards the staging area. A set of five prism-like objects soon slipped out of his bag and took their positions at his side, each floating in tandem with one another as if they were a single object. With a cursory glance towards each one—Conduits, as they were called—the young man gave a nod to himself before proceeding.

Ideally, the others were prepared for fights to break out once they touched down; Derrick had no doubt that they would be [i]ready[/i] to fight, of course, but being [i]prepared[/i] and being [i]ready[/i] were not one and the same.

[@VitaVitaAR][@Pyromania99][@thecatinaction][@Wayward]