"It should!" Eckhart appeared through one of the multitude of doorways holding onto a pile of papers, "'Cause it did the last five time... or ten; I lost count. Great speech Jane. It was very concise and to the point. It was very enjoyable, with a dash of comedy to keep the audience interested, but a riveting premise to reel 'em in. Something like that, or whatever. I just got here."

Using the papers in his hands, he waved Jane off the non-existent stage as he took over. His mustache curled slightly at the sight of just a bunch of misfits; he was beginning to regret his prior thoughts when looking over the applications. Then he suddenly remembered that these were the best of the best out of the cesspool of impoverished and uneducated 'people'. It made his stomach flip and it was obvious he lost much of his already minuscule amount of hope from the sudden sunken expression that tugged at his features. He was probably looking at a room of potentially dead individuals, minus a few of the ones who were immortal, or just damn hard to kill—he wasn't quite sure which and he wouldn't be bothered by it now. 

Did he have a speech? Not technically speaking. Well, technically speaking he had totally forgotten about this whole process deal with the new captain in crew. To be honest, he'd rather have them go out now and do their jobs, but this time was just more money in his pocket.

"So, I guess you're the new batch?" he sighed, hands locking behind him, "Well, I just want to let you all know that I will be letting some of you go because, as you can see, the people you were to replace are still alive. But the rest can stay. I think. I mean, if you want to leave, I'm sure one of these fellows would like to take your spot. Just know that you're a coward, but you're alive. Speaking of which, most of you, if you aren't already, will most likely die a terrible, terrible death from the various terrible things this universe has hidden away in its utility belt. In fact, unless you're immortal or something close to it, there's about a 99% chance you will die. I die on a daily basis, but we'll talk about that later. What I have now is your first mission, but I want everyone to get acquainted first... with the ship, before we head out into the void of our universe. Right now, I need to speak with Jane about a temporal anomaly that I accidentally forced into our universe."

He moved toward the doorway as he beckoned Jane, but stopped immediately to look at Harriet. "It's not a mess, I promise. Well, there's a mess in my lab, but that's unrelated. It's related to what happened to the other crew, though, if that interests you. Come Jane, I need to explain our scenario. We, uh, have two pilots..."

---

Jane followed Eckhart into the hallway, rolling her eyes. "Careful, doc, I'm not sure you rolled back absolutely everything I said in there. " She sighed, pausing for a moment, but not long enough to let him speak. 

"I guess it doesn't actually matter," she said, "They must be past caring about new captains, I know I am. I could just see their attention slipping away, melting out of their tiny little brains--" 

She stopped speaking. They weren't alone in the corridor. There was a girl standing there, a little shorter then she was, pretty, definitely human. She was just standing there, watching the two of them. Jane blinked, taking a moment to process. "Who's this?" 

"This is the Temporal Anomaly," Eckhart chimed in with a smile, ignoring Jane's comments, or rather complaints about the new crew, "That's a mouthful. I forgot her name—what's your name? Unimportant. This is the other pilot, of which you'll need to acquaint with the ship more specifically. You need to hold her hand and everything; have fun!"

Eckhart began to walk past her, still smiling brightly, though it had a very ominous and slightly whimsical undertone, denoted by Eckhart's widened eyes and noticeably waggling brows. "I would love some tea. That last one had this dreadful aftertaste. Look at my hand; it's shaking from the amount of protein that was in it. This is why I don't take steroids."

Jane reached out as he passed, catching his elbow. She took a step forward, turned, and pressed him (just roughly enough) against the bulkhead before letting go. "We talked about this, doc. If I'm going to run [i]Second Sun[/i] for you, you can't use it as a dump for whatever your lab shits out. What did you do?" 

Furrowing his brow at her less than graceful assault, Eckhart straightened himself to address her properly. "It was an accident," he said firmly, dusting off his sleeve, "And I usually clean up what my lab 'shits' out. Or, at least Harriet does. But this one was alive and not some terrible dimensional being looking to swallow our universe; I thought it would be okay to keep her. And I don't have to explain myself! I own this company, Jane."

"Fine," Jane said. "I quit." She turned, as if to walk away.

"Oh really?"

"Sure, why not? You could always recruit, I don't know-- that Sysephian captain with the compound eyes. I hear he has to wash them with acid three times daily." 

"But Jane, you know we'll get nothing done with him, it, her, it. I don't have that kind of acid supply to last me however long he'll live—probably a few hours. Come on Jane. Jane... Jane. Jane, please. I'll have Martha fix your favorite cookies," Eckhart pleaded, not moving from his spot in the hallway as he only stared at Clarisse, feeling a sense of utter dread as he did so. She looked so helpless, like the moment he put her in the cockpit the ship would suddenly explode out of sheer inexperience and outdated knowledge.

"I want a two-way path, Eck," Jane said. "Whether you fucked up or not. Starting with this."

"Jane, that's like asking me to quit drinking tea."

"So start buying coffee beans." 

"The coffee here taste like bug balls dipped in lactic acid," he groaned, turning to face Jane with a frown. He crossed his arms and looked at her, obviously pouting now. She didn't say anything; she just stood there, eyebrows raised, watching him flounder. He knew she was doing it; she often did, and it usually worked with most of his iterations. From the sudden stomping of his feet and mild arm flail, it seemed this was one of those iterations. "You're like a damn... damn... whatever. You're so passive-aggressive that I've become flustered."

Eckhart stomped forward, beckoning both Clarisse and Jane to follow him to his makeshift lab. "You promise me you won't tell anyone about this? No matter how blatantly obvious it is that she doesn't come from around here. For some reason if you don't bring something up, no one questions it. Except for you and Harriet, apparently. Of all the people to have a bullshit detector..."

"Fine, sure. Not like the rest of them would care." Jane said.

"Well, they wouldn't, but that's not what matters," he escorted the two to his lab, smiling politely, albeit slightly creepily, at Clarisse, "I would make a reference to something, but you're too young to understand."