Shira chose not to respond to Kaz's irate statements. Much as she had thought, he wasn't willing to talk to anyone at the moment. Frankly, she was plenty irate with the situation herself, but there were times and places to work that sort of thing out. Her expression remained passive and emotionless. Shira prided herself on her ability to compartmentalize her emotions, and she tended to think less of people who were less capable of driving their own emotions out of the way to focus on their job. Then again, that was an unhealthy attitude, and she was more than aware of how unfair such judgments were.<br/><br/>"Have a good day, Mr. Markin. I'll expect your report tomorrow morning." Kaz was already moving towards the elevator, however, and she doubted he even heard her. Shira had other responsibilities right now, though that glass of whiskey sounded tempting. Instead, she headed towards the main Knights engineering office, pulling out her tablet and checking over her notes as she walked in. The room was noisy, with almost everyone talking about the test, the asteroid cloud, and many throwing glances at her, some thumbs up. Shira returned them with a smile, giving a thumbs up back. Royce just gestured her into his office.<br/><br/>"Well Doc, let me first extend my congratulations. You did great out there, especially in the face of unexpected circumstances." Royce sat down at his desk. He looked...tired. "The team's practically salivating at the prospect of analyzing all the data we just got. From the fact that you're already here...I'm guessing you weren't able to debrief Markin?"<br/><br/>Shira shook her head. "The pilot wasn't in any condition to be debriefed. It was stressful out there, and I can't really overstate how close he came to dying. I'll get his report tomorrow morning."<br/><br/>Royce just laughed in response. "You can say it. He was pissed, wasn't he? Don't worry about it."<br/><br/>"I'd be too." Shira grimaced, crossing her arms. "Chief, how the hell did we miss an asteroid cloud? Even my sensor data didn't have a clue." Her eye projected a display of the data she had right around the appearance of the asteroids. It was clear. "It's almost like it was shielded or-" Shira was interrupted by Royce raising a hand.<br/><br/>"Yeah, I just came back from doing some yelling myself. We're looking into it, and frankly, it bothers the hell out of me that we almost just lost a pilot and a mech that easily." His eyebrows furrowed. "I take it as a personal insult, frankly, that one of our best people and some of our best equipment was placed in that much danger. Was it negligence? Incompetence?" Royce practically growled. "But enough of that for now. We're not solving the problem here. Give me the rundown of what we discovered."<br/><br/>Shira gave her report, going over the findings, but stopped short of calling it finished. There were still other aspects that bothered her. "I noticed there were some odd fluctuations in the drive output. It never was enough to affect the test." She had set her tablet down on the desk, and it was projecting multiple holograms of data. She also had a massive frown on her face, almost grumpy. "Thing is, these data points don't occur at any given intervals, or after specific stimuli, or are correlated with any other datapoints. They also go away just as quickly as I noticed them." Shira chose to leave out the sneaking suspicion that the inanimate piece of technology was trolling her. "And, as mentioned before, the out-of-nowhere asteroid cloud. But that's all from me. I'll get these results to the R&D team so they can start making some changes. The heat management especially was a major find. All the data should have been sent to the appropriate parties already."<br/><br/>Royce nodded. "Looks good. Great job out there, Dr. Brigandy, you had an excellent second day on the job. Glad to have you on the team. You're free to go."<br/><br/>"Actually, I have one request," Shira stopped him. "Using the data we acquired, we should create a simulation. I'm aware the plan is to eventually have this equipped on all light craft, so a simulation utilizing the Dart data would prove instrumental for our pilots. We could just improve it as we gather more data too. I'd like to request that 20% of my time be spent working on that, in addition to my duties."<br/><br/>"That's...not a bad idea. And you've got some experience with simulations, right?" Royce smiled and nodded. "I'll have to clear the request with higher-ups, but I say go for it. We've got a team that's in charge of developing simulations, so I'd say drop in and have a chat with them sometime."<br/><br/>"Thanks Chief. I'll catch you tomorrow." Shira picked up her tablet, deactivating it, and then walked out. As she headed through the hangar, she passed Kaz's mech, the drive still humming in standby mode on it's back. The diagnostics would catch anything she needed to take a look at, but for now she headed into her office. Closing the door behind her, Shira fell into her chair, finally letting a bit of exhaustion take her. She reclined back, her mind still actively thinking about the test. It had gone well. The team and Royce had even said so. But there were still plenty of questions, and more analysis needing to be done. "Fucking drive, I'm onto you." she muttered to herself, letting her eyes close. Her phone buzzed. Her security contact had replied. Apparently they didn't know anything at the moment, but could confirm that plenty of people were in various states of head scratching and freaking out.<br/><br/>"Someone's gonna be losing their job over this." Shira groaned and sat up in her chair. It was time for a drink. A strong one, preferably accompanied by pleasant company. She grabbed her bag, stowed her things, and walked out of the Knights Hangar.