I don't need

[Reeves]

Where was she? An order to provide consultation on an impending plan of action was made weeks ago, and regardless of how Angelina felt about Ramsey, Morreti didn't label her as the type to skip out on obligations. No surprise visits to poke at his handling of situations, no idle banter intended to rile him up and frustrate him. She'd been absolutely nowhere and that was out of character for her. A trip to Ouray didn't take long, and it wasn't as if the hangar crews were surprised to see the Alliance Marshal's Prosecutor pulling in for a landing. With it seeming like he was in a hurry, the people that walked over to attend to his parked ship didn't bother him with conversation and nor did Morreti have anything to say to them. He had a singular purpose for coming here.

One place at a time, checking the bar first - not there. Requisition center for basic goods? Not there either. This list of places to check was running out of items, there was only one other place he could go in the event that she wasn't anywhere to be found. Her quarters weren't far from where he last checked, but they also happened to be located on the most cramped, poorly lit and coldest part of the base. For the sake of being polite, he knocked a few times but all that gesture elicited was dead air. A twist of the handle revealed that the door was locked, but upon closer inspection of the door it became clear that it had been locked from the outside. Now, Morreti had a master card to every door across every station the Xenos occupied. There wasn't a door he couldn't open, but he didn't have the card with him and didn't feel like taking the hours necessary to fetch it from Ramsey. No, the gun would suffice. She had her chance to answer the door or even respond, loud music or a great shower wasn't an excuse to be rude.

And so he blew the door open, aiming at where the lock met with the wall and indenting the steel enough to cause the frame to buckle. It was cheap enough to bend for the inch required to swing it open, but as soon as the door groaned opened the plot only seemed to thicken. She wasn't here, and hadn't been here for a while now. The air was frigid, it was common practice to open up the door every few hours to let the warmth of the base reactor eventually pass through. It wasn't an exact science or a particularly reliable process, but it did serve as a subtle statement to express how long she'd been gone. At this point he's angry and leaving seems like the best option, but curiosity's a powerful thing. And despite sentiment not being his preferred mindset, he wanted to see what was the last book she read. But by doing so, he'd discovered that a note had been left behind, addressed to him. It was definitely her handwriting, albeit with a more erratic degree of pressure than usual. Stress, maybe? Regardless of her frame of mind might have been while writing it, Morreti picked up the plain piece of paper and read silently.

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This.. struck a chord, no that wasn't quite the right expression. This took a razor to a harp and gutted the strings. Now there was something to be said, even if there was nobody around to hear it, because not only did she have no right to leave like this, she did it anyway and didn't see the need to talk to him first. Morreti intended to express how incredibly f-ing wonderful this was, but the words did not come out, and trying only evoked a horrible feeling that wound his gut up like a deflated balloon. If the Xenos were the sort to attract disgruntled psychologists, then this would be a remarkable development to be documented for the field of study relating to the human mind. A notorious sociopath standing there with his throat squeezed under the strain of what seemed like sincere disappointment and remorse.

This just wasn't acceptable for him though, feeling nothing at all would have been far preferable, that's how it should be. He wasn't given a choice in the matter of how to feel and that only served to make him try to talk again and the sound of his own saddened mumbling made him resort to screaming instead. It was likely he woke the dead, or gave some of the more elderly Knights of Labor a swift end to their struggle by way of spontaneous cardiac arrest from the sudden noise. Though it was also just as likely that the base being as noisy as a retrofit transport running around with a wrench in the engine shaft served to drown it out. The latter seemed like the most likely outcome, given that nobody came to investigate who had died and if they could have their stuff.

He kept the note and sat down on the edge of her bed. Going out there like this wasn't the sort of thing he was going to allow to happen, but all the same it seemed like he needed a moment. The bigger dilemma was having to replace the lock, a creative excuse was going to be necessary when talking to the supply vendor. Maybe the gun would suffice in that situation as well, it didn't really matter.

Eventually he mustered the strength to leave, jamming the door back into place so that nobody felt compelled by curiosity to look around, it would have to be cut down off its frame and entirely replaced in the future. With everything being as uncertain as it was, Morreti decided to check on her ship as requested. It was still there, untouched. Perhaps a little dirty from not being cared for over the past few days, or more likely was the fact that Ouray was just riddled with filth. With nowhere else to be for the next several hours, he climbed into the pilot's seat and leaned back, trying not to think. A dose of what he needed to take and roughly an hour of bitter euphoria later, he'd find some respite in sleep.

If only temporarily.

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On indefinite hiatus because the current state of gameplay sucks - ping me over discord if replies are needed