Lauren looked down at her watch as the last two ran into the room, 3 hours and 3 minutes late. "Now that we're all here, we can get going." She tapped the side of the giant vehicle, which looked like nothing so much as a giant metal box with ant legs, and the hatch folded down from the side. As she stepped into the sparse interior of the vehicle, she brought out her communicator and pressed a few buttons on the screen. Rows of chairs slid out from the walls, and two more chairs rose up from the floor at the front. A second hatch opened in the floor at the back, and she pointed to it. "Cargo goes there. Once it's secured take a seat and we'll head out. There'll be plenty of time to get to know each other, we have a week's worth of ground to cover." As she took one of the seats anyone who knew about the vehicles could see instantly this wasn't a normal sandcrawler. for one thing it was almost three times larger than the vehicles used for conventional desert travel, and instead of fixed benches the furniture seemed to be modular. Once everyone was onboard, Lauren pressed a few buttons on the control console and the outside hatch closed again, and the rails under the Sandcrawler's feet instantly began propelling them down the tunnel without a sound.