[center][h1]Tommy Pearson[/h1][/center]

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Tommy settled a hand reassuringly on his knife as he and Yuri walked through the closed in corridors of the China Doll. He had been surprised to be invited inside, but he supposed if this crew really needed a pilot as badly as they said, best to have him look at his new potential office before signing anything. Especially since based on the look of the crew, the China Doll was set to depart within a few days to make a profitable run through the black.

It wasn't long before they reached the cockpit, and Tommy eyed the pilot seat with mixed feelings of excitement and nervousness. He noted the lack of chaos typically found around a pilot's chair. Pilots, Tommy included, had a habit of viewing their seat as their personal throne through which they ruled the kingdom that was the ship even if it was at the orders of a Captain. He smiled a bit and slipped into the chair, taking a moment to relax at the increasingly familiar feel of the seat. Even if it was only his throne for a short time, he had a feeling he was going to like this ship.

[b] “Feel free to run her through a preflight check.  The radion core’s offline right now, and it goes without saying we can’t spin up the atmo engines with all that foot traffic, but short of that you should get a decent feel for her.”[/b]

Tommy's hands were already moving, dancing across controls and readouts in a series of basic flight checks. Everything appeared to be as Yuri said, fuel level was acceptable for a jump through the black, power readouts were within acceptable limits, and coolant and emergency measures appeared to be well in place and untampered with. 

"Don't mind the unfamiliar hands darlin'," Tommy muttered to himself, or at least he thought it was to himself, "gotta learn a fine shape like yours to treat it right. I promise I'll be gentle exceptin those times when I can't."

He was halfway through running the checks a second time to look for irregularities when an unknown voice seemed to come out of the air itself.

[b]"Greetings, Tommy, and welcome to the China Doll bridge."[/b]

"Gǎo shénme guǐ?(What the hell?)," Tommy hissed, his hand flying down to his sidearm and pulling it halfway out of the holster, already taking as much cover as could be found in the cockpit and putting the consoles between him and the door. His eyes scanned for a target and despite the rapid reaction, his breathing was calmed, nearly silent as he tried to find who, or what had spoken.

"Gorram haunted ship got ghosts of former pilots talkin to me now?," he muttered again when he could find no moving target to draw his attention. His body was tensed, ready to spring in any direction to save himself but his hand slowly slid the Firestar M-45 back into it's holster. Discharging a few rounds in the cockpit was a terrible way to introduce himself to the crew, he figured.

"Sorry, must not have heard ya coming up the corridor," Tommy called out, straightening to a standing position and continuing to peer into the entrance to the cockpit as his brain could only assume that is where the voice could have come from. "I'm uh... the pilot... potential pilot, I guess... H-Hello?"