I'll be honest, I ducked this little episode completely because I'm busy and distracted at work on one hand, and because I have been getting frustrated with the game on the other.
For a long time I felt like I had been making all the decisions for the group -- and as the newest player and one least familiar with the game and setting, that was a pretty frustrating place to be. It's hard enough joining a campaign in mid-stream -- never mind being the one left to drive the plot forward. That was exacerbated by the subsequent loss of several other players, and the relative infrequency of posts (and I'm a pretty big offender there, although in many cases I decided not to post for days at a time waiting to see if anyone else would jump into the void).
At this point, I'm really not quite feeling it. I don't think it's anyone's fault, but so far I feel like RK has been faced with a mystery that we were not quite equipped to solve (and, RK's primary role in that scenario was to try to keep order on the ship -- there was very little other help solving the mystery), and then a fool's errand for the navy that it is simply not in character for RK to accept.
My gut reaction, to your post, was "no, really, I'll stick with RK sleeping on the ship." And that's really not cool, or fair to either of you. What I really ought to do is bow out of the game and encourage you to fill my place -- and the place of the other players -- with more motivated replacements.
I'm really sorry to let you guys down, but I think you'll have a better game with someone else playing RK.
-john