Caelum stared for a moment in complete surprise at the man – Tide, if she recalled correctly – and somewhat belatedly realised she hadn't sealed the door behind her. Running a hand tiredly through her hair, she shrugged. “Sure. Not much in the way of seating around here but that bench's cleared.”

The bench she was pointing to wasn't cleared, not entirely. It still had several empty notebooks and a scribbled-on pilot's manual resting on top of it, but Caelum didn't particularly care. 

Fingers running of the antiquated knobs and dials no longer connected to the running of the ship as they had been nine years ago, she pressed against the slider to begin the first preparations for checking that The Medusa was airtight and space-worthy. The ship shuddered with the strain of all essential systems activating all at once and the sound of metal clattering against metal resonated throughout it. “There's that rattle,” she mused. “Jason never did fix it...”

The pilot surveyed the screens which flickered on one by one, blinding blue lines etched across her vision. She was determined to change the language ASAP because even if most of her job involved symbols and pictures, it was her own [i]choice[/i] to use Arabic – mostly as a secret code. It would take a lot of trial and error to steal the ship from her now. 

She stopped at the display of star-maps... well, those were useless – she knew Sycamore and her sister planets like the back of her hand... [i]Swish.[/i] She flicked the offending information away. Brand spanking new touch screen interfaces. How... modern.

Caelum carefully observed the screen with the life signs on it and, after ensuring that nobody was standing on or outside the cargo bay doors, she typed in the code to raise it out of muscle memory. Nicki F. Sharpe had made a beeline for the med bay (of course she had) and she was going to find a nasty surprise when she entered–

Ah. Caelum slammed on the tannoy system that ran throughout the ship, directing it exclusively to the crackly one that connected to the med bay. She was sure the mechanics and cleaners who had serviced the ship hours before they all boarded said something about refusing to take care of that room, mostly because... well, of the blood. And the history. “F. Sharpe? Aaah – sorry about the mess in there. Cleaners refused to do it, 'cos it wasn't in their job description. Blood and bodily fluids, y'know.” Had to be nonchalant. Had to be.

Finally, Caelum turned back to Tide with an ever-so-slightly false grin. “So! Ever flown in one of these babies before?” She patted the top of the defunct console.