"You know what?"

Pause.

Look to the left.

Up. Slightly down.

Notice the blind lady outside pulling along her rotting seeing eye dog.

Watch blind lady die because she forgot to look both ways before crossing. Some people just have no common sense.

Wonder why there are windows in the ship.

There are no windows on the ship.

Must have left the alternative universe device on. Or maybe that woman was so idiotic that she could be seen from light years away.

[i]"And on the daily news: lady so idiotic that you can see her die from light years away. Now to Dante with the weather."[/i]

[i]"Bitch, don't cut to me while I'm smoking my joint. There's gonna be rain, fuckers. And some goddamn meteor showers. Get this shit off me; I'm busy."[/i]

Odd turn of events, with a slight pinch of ADHD in there. Eckhart could only blink at the sudden shift. Right out of the left field, if he had any say in the matter. But he didn't, so he simply flowed with the odd, often anachronistic movement of time. People didn't have time to deal with it, so whoever managed the infinite amount of clocks in the universe run by the twisted dark matter that tugged at the fabrics of the universe, or something like that—maybe it wasn't dark matter, but something entirely different. It sure seemed like dark matter.

Enough of that flippant nonesense. Nobody has time for anything, especially that.

Turning from Jane, of which he promptly told her to wait in his lab with Clarisse, he ventured down the long hall of the second deck. It was dimly lit in an orange glow, lighting the rustic corridor in a nostalgic haze of what used to be the sterile white akin to a hospital. It used to smell that way to, death and all, but for an entirely different reason. The lights hung lowish from their circuits, having become unhinged from the bolts that forced them into the low lying ceiling, coated in a multitude of various wires, visibly chewed on by vermin that found its way in. They blinked occasionally, or incessantly should they be nearing their end, of which took out approximately three crew members in total. Apparently, they didn't have skulls that could withstand the brunt force of hard, titanium alloy, nor could they overcome the sudden shock of electrocution that surged through their ultimately very squishy and unprotected bodies. 

Aside from that, Eckhart journeyed down the particular hallway that ended in the cockpit, a large spacious room decked in cables and circuits misplaced and thrown along the entirety of every surface. Lining the walls were stations, little box like things that looked a lot like they used to be pure white, but were stained in grime and dirt to the point where they shown a stark yellow under the lights. The circuits and wires around it emitted a quiet hiss and a haze of black smoke that seemed to stick to the floor, too dense for the ship's atmosphere. It smelled a lot like burnt toast, with a light undertone of grilled scalp. Ejecting from the boxes was a grand scheme of yellow: a holographic interface. It contained the schematics of the ship, detailing the status and readouts, as well as helped adjust course and direction along with an assortment of other arrays that mostly dealt with keeping the ship steady and on its course. That was the co-pilots job. Straight ahead, in the wide expanse of various boxes and wires and interfaces that flew across like beams of light, was the lone seat for the pilot. It was a small seat, designed for someone flexible, that was connected to an arcing interface of various buttons and holo-interfaces that spilled codes, words, and algorithms that would literally cause an individual's mind to explode. The seat was hovering slightly, magnetically attached to the interface to allow for perfect movement, but situated so that it was always facing the lone steering wheel, should the ship suddenly come off it's two previous modes of flight—through various button presses that Eckhart had no idea how it operated, or through the autopilot. Some of the pilots he'd hired approved the joystick mode a lot more, but they quickly died as they flew through the wall in front of them. Apparently, crashes could propel squishy individuals through military grade metal. He'd previously though they would have just splattered in a gooey substance, but was proven wrong three out of those five times. Maybe three. He lost count.

In equally dimly lit and slightly smokey room, about able to contain five people comfortably, Eckhart moved toward one of the interfaces. Letting his hand glide along the non-existent surface, he brought up a voice box, which protruded from the interior of the yellowish cube and adjusted to his level. And then he spoke.

"'Scuse me, fellow people of—I already forgot the name of the ship. That's not important, what is is the fact that I have an announcement to make," he boomed, his voice coating the entire ship from top to bottom in tandem. The intercom was such an antiquity that his voice literally cracked in an almost unintelligible murmur, though his diction was distinct enough that it only came across as a drunken stupor.

"So, now that we have people who actually want to die—I mean, work—we can hopefully do a successful assignment where the minimal amount of people die. I'll be surprised if it's only me, but I won't hold my breath," he continued, "To continue, I would like to congratulate you all on coming somewhat on time and not going mad with fear. I think only two of you left, though I'm not necessarily sure. Regardless, our first assignment just got shipped to us and is waiting in the storage bay down in the maintenance deck. I advise you that only personnel with the proper layout of the maintenance deck peruse around there, along with our resident idiot. Suffice to say, I should probably tell you all what we're shipping, but I'm too busy counting up the little amount of money that I have to distribute. I would pocket it and run if I didn't have an obligation to make more money.

"Onto the mission specs, of which I just sent out, I think. Wait. Okay, I just sent it out this instant. We're supposed to deliver a large crate that weighs more than the whole of our crew combined to the distant and remote gas giant world of Livid III. The inhabitants call it Irix Delta (either way is fine) and I don't think I pronounced that right. Regardless, the inhabitants are a centipod species that have evolved over the millions of years they've lived there to survive in the underground, pressurized colonies of the gas giant. I forgot what they're called, so lemme check my notes. Right, uh, group of... yep... dot dot dot... queen... notes... blah blah—oh, there it is: Loovid. Loovid? Is that right. I think it is. Whatever. But, they're a very work oriented species and make up the brunt of higher class industries in a lot of systems. They have their own union because apparently they monopolized the work force. How does that make sense? I wouldn't ask; it's too much of a headache. But, they have a funny way of going about things and require their Queen to be as comfortable as possible. Like any hive mind, there are multiple Queens and all that crap, but they have different ways of going about their business. This one in particular requires a... hold on.... anti-neutrino, aloe vera coated pairs of socks to guard against toxic radiation. She's like that alien queen from that movie, in where she's hooked up to—never mind, that's not necessary. Just know that they have to leak the gas giants radiation into her chambers to incubate her eggs and feed her larvae and all that shit. So, naturally, she gets bunions from birthing the entirety of her colony all day, whilst watching reruns of Opera and Ellen. Furthermore, these bunions fester in the radioactive environment and burst under enough duress, which is obviously very painful and uncomfortable, so the Socks and Garters Monopoly Enterprise has designed specialized socks for them to wear, however they're so laden with anti-radioactive materials and foot sootheners, and equipped with a massager and so much more that reading the list becomes tedious—like all things medical, the side effects outweigh the actual beneficial things. It's also damn heavy and requires a ship to transport it, though that's not why it can't be teleported. Something with the materials exploding inside the teleporter and causing planet wide explosions. So, we're to all accompany the delivery boy on this mission so that he doesn't do anything stupid and try to steal what's inside the damn crate again. You can't steal this shit, Uvenk, it's heavier than you're goddamn grandmother and she requires a fucking forklift to flip over in her goddamned bed. If I see your klepto-fucked hands anywhere near the inside of this crate, I'm going to sell you on Greg's List as an entire assortment of women's wear. I swear to God almighty, dammit."

Eckhart stepped from the intercom, paused, and returned to finish, "That is all. To your stations, you fucktards before I dock your pay."

With that, he walked back into the hallway and up the adjoining steps situated just outside the cockpit, one on each side and undoubtedly narrow—an elevator at the furthest end of the hall, just south of the cockpit, was designed for the bustier and larger of the crew. Squeezing through, he moved up to the top floor where his lab was located, of which everything was situated along one very long corridor to fit the entirety of the top rooms and the crew quarters on one level. It was a lot nicer up there, though still rather rusty. The Janitor kept a very clean ship, despite its venerable state. You never wanted to touch anything because it looked dirty as all hell, but you knew you could very well eat off the floor without so much as catching a cold. Down this strip was a lot less rusty, with the walls the stark white it should be, though the edges were tinged in the old, ugly red that threatened to creep further down until it engulfed the entirety of the wall. The lights were bolted in tight, in a cut section of the ceiling with hung a lot higher than the second and last deck. Down this stretch lay five doors, the furthers end, the one opposite of where Eckhart currently stood, was the Janitor's Closet, behind him the entrance to the cube like encirclement of quarters, down his left lay the lab, and to his right lay the rec room and medical bay, both conjoined. An explosion occurred before he'd gotten his hands on it that tore down the partition between the lounge and the medical bay and Eckhart had determined it was much too expensive for him to bother fixing. He's only gotten one complaint of the various surgeries Glyx has done, in which a finger got stuck in a man's sandwich. The infection inside the finger killed the crew member off, which was a lot better than having to deal with more complaint forms.

Walking into the lab, the doors squeaking in protest before one jammed noticeably at the top, leaving him little room to move in, but he managed—everyone had to if they wanted inside his lab. He'd actually get that fixed someday because it was annoying and pertained to his discomfort. 

After sliding through, he smiled, looked at Jane and simply said. "Are you ready captain? Or would you like to waste time talking about the gal that's supposed to be flying the ship? As long as I get my tea, then I'll be thoroughly satisfied."