When the debriefing broke up, Alroy had been characteristically silent - it was obvious no one wanted to talk, and the mood in the room as the various members of the battered squad went their separate ways was palpably draining. A solid, unflinching and immovable rock as he always was, Alroy still gave no visible reaction as he wordlessly made his way to his quarters, closing the door behind him and locking it securely.<br/><br/>Alone, he dropped his mask and broke down, going to his knees on the bare floor and wrapping his arms around his torso as he shuddered in place. This was the side of Alroy no one else got to see - the patchwork shell that was his psyche after three decades of 'Mech combat, almost twenty of which overlapped with protecting and maintaining the ancient King Crab he had named Tanya, to remind him never to make a very singular mistake again. Twenty years of watching every shadowy corner for knives, avoiding crowded bars and loud parties where it would be easier for the next in a long line of generally ineffectual but irritatingly persistent hired assassins to get at him to preserve a minor noble family's warped Kuritan honor. He' been with Walter's company for a few years, the longest he'd ever lasted with one outfit; after finding out their biggest cash sink was also being targeted by hired killers, few employers offered to renew his contract.<br/><br/>He hated being helpless, and the battle on the surface had been the epitome of helplessness. A hundred tons of metal, and he'd nearly been taken down by five tons of impossible infantry in impossible battle suits. Perkins was a financier, a bookkeeper, a bag of money who funded the outfit looking to get more out than he put in. He wasn't even a Mechwarrior, as far as Alroy knew, and if he was the old man had forgotten everything he knew. Alroy had done his best when he saw the fissures Perkin's invective had been opening, normally harmless critique punching through the unit's stripped emotional armor. Even Guts N' Bones wouldn't have been able to salvage a win there without the Bastion's intervention, but Perkins only saw the C-bills draining from his account for repairs and failure to accomplish contract, and struck at the only people who could get his money back for him.<br/><br/>Breaking the fugue state for a moment, Alroy walked on his knees over to his bunk, struggling to flip up the bed to the hidden compartment concealed underneath with its fluid-filled injector needles. With blackness around the edges of his vision, he managed to fumble a syringe free, placing it against the vein near his armpit and letting the load of X-Quick diffuse itself into his bloodstream, the lightning crackles of the stimulant chasing away his depression for the time being. His fingers twitched in sympathetic reflex, and it was several minutes before he got them back into control and packed away his stash. Confident he had control again, he exited the crew quarters area and headed to the 'Mech bay to start patching up Tanya from the battle.