[h3][b]John Lockman and Virginia Sokolova[/b][/h3][hr]John wiped away a clump of oil with an already smeared rag. Eyebrow raising as he took in his visitor. 

“What can I do for the conquering bug slayer?”

Ginny was carrying herself casually, the duct tape over her torn up coveralls betrayed that she still hasn't settled in properly. "Start with accepting a thank you for going along with my dumbass plan and saving my skin."

“Accepted.” He hope she didn’t notice the slight hesitance in his voice. He hadn’t so much followed then misunderstood a garbled transmission and accidentally fired a missile.

“Not that it seemed like you needed much saving from my end of things.”

The pilot scooted his way to the edge of the nacelle. Boots dangling from his new perch closer to Ginny.

"You managed to ring my bell pretty good, not a good thing to be concussed on limited ox." She says casually, looking up to him "You fly shuttles like that before?" 

"First time firing anything outside the range." He replied, a slight defensive shrug, before he patted the armor beside him. " But I pretty much flew this baby from drawing board to production." 

A small amount of pride that turned to dismay as he gestured at the debris of his repair attempts.

"The Lockman Aerospace LG-54 Kestrel Assault Shuttle. Newest shuttle on the market. So new that no one has spare parts. Including colony ships."

The Ranger looks him up and down "You built the thing?" she seems to be re-estimating the man "If you got the prints I can see what I can do with the fabs, might not be to-spec, but should be good enough."

“I didn’t design it.” He corrected. Sliding down from the engine to the deck. “More like I helped massage an over engineered mess into a flyable frame.” 

He stuck a thumb at the cockpit. 

“I was a test pilot.”

Ginny bobs her head along "Even better."