Fascinating. Stel was listening in on the other pilots a few tables away as they chatted. Artemie's story was very interesting, though the rest was somewhat less so. Sure, it was interesting to hear that the planet they were sent to had life, and it suddenly hit Stel that she'd never seen a natural planet before, but she was raised on a rock and expected to be landing on a rock. Heck, there was still some debate on whether or not her home even [i]was[/i] a planet, so she was possibly going to see her first planet ever, certainly the first with non-recycled water. She lived a life on a planet that got all its resources from other planets or harvested directly from the Kuiper Belt. But it wasn't that thought of beautiful life that got her heart racing, it was the thought of the potentially dangerous alien life on it. That thought only strengthened her resolve to figure out her more personal ultimatum. 

After all, she was only on the [i]Pandora[/i] because of her Orbital. So it was that Orbital that filled most of her mind. If she had stayed home she would have had all the time she needed to learn its quirks, but now it was a rush to figure out Michael's in's and out's, literally and figuratively. She was no real pilot after all, she was just lucky. She couldn't stand next to war vets or people [i]raised[/i] in Orbitals or a freakin' interplanetary hero! (If she was remembering meeting them correctly) She was barely a functional engineer! So in her mind, she had two choices; become a fantastic pilot to match her orbital, or perhaps more likely, find a way to use her engineering skill to remove Michael's hard-lock so a better person could pilot it.