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Went with Pride, but kept all the descriptions of history and powers a bit bland so they can be adjusted as we all character sheet up.


Tentatively interested. Wrath of course is my favorite, but my deadliest is pride.
Herald, checking in! I will have a char sheet ready by tomorrow night, I just got a little overwhelmed with today's activities irl
Definitely interested.
Tommy Pearson


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Never thought I'd have the gorram ship questioning my ability, Tommy thought to himself as he stared at the consoles, a bit wide eyed at the revelation of an artificial intelligence on the China Doll. The ramifications of having an actual true AI... he started to wonder just who in the hell he had managed to sign himself up with. Were they black market dealers? Did they need the AI to bypass Alliance blocks?

He took off his hat and ran a hand through his closely cropped brown hair. "Right to the meat of the issue," he muttered, then held up a hand though he wasn't sure what direction to gesture in, "sorry, meant no offense about the meat thing."

He wasn't sure how much control the AI was permitted of the ship, but he didn't care to find out by pissing it off.

"If you're lookin' at my war records, you're right," he began, sighing heavily, "I didn't so much fight as run supplies as avoid getting shot. Sure I burned my share of gunpowder at the Alliance, but I was hardly what you might call the front line type."

"I spent a few years runnin a Komodo class. Different from the China Doll, I know, but beggars and choosers," Tommy continued, "got my pilot's wings the way half the men in the Independence Army did... previous owner was killed right in front of me and no one else was quicker to take the controls. My military record is a mess on the part of the piss poor job the administration did, but trust me, I've got more than a few years sailing the black."

"Can't say I've spoken with an AI before," Tommy said, "you my co-pilot on this bird? Or do you have some other role to play here Miss Samantha? It is Miss, right?"
Tommy Pearson


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Tommy's brow furrowed in confusion as he eyed the com unit suspiciously, having traced the voice's origin point directly to it. Who was he talking to now? Another crew member somewhere in the ship? It had to be, right? Were they just too shy to come up and talk to him face to face? The whole conversation was setting him on edge, but he tried his best to keep it out of his voice.

"A Sir-name? Naw, I ain't much of a nob-," Tommy's face flushed slightly, "oh, you mean a family name. Sorry, my usual conversation partners can't even spell surname most of the time. It's Pearson. Tommy Pearson."

He moved back around to the front of the consoles, taking another look towards the entrance to the cockpit and reassuring himself that no one was in fact standing in the shadows messing with him. He took the pilot's seat again and after a few moments of eyeing the comm system again, began resuming his secondary checks of the China Doll's systems.

"Mind if I inquire who I'm talking to?," Tommy said as he stared at the readouts, satisfied that nothing was terribly out of the ordinary, at least, not that it appeared to his eyes. Of course, the last time he had been this close to a Firefly class had been back during the war.

"It's a little disconcertin' to be talkin to a squawk box, be easier to talk face to face yeah?" Tommy said, leaning back in the chair and relaxing slightly as one boot came up to rest on the edge of the console. "Are you a member of the crew or one of the passengers?"
Tommy Pearson


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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.

“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.”

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.

"Greetings, Tommy, and welcome to the China Doll bridge."

"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?"
Tommy Pearson


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Tommy's eyebrow arched at Yuri's words. A standard share plus room and board? It was a pretty good deal, and not one that you might offer to a stranger who you'd known only ten minutes. And pilots normally got the short end of the deal in his experience, after all, what were they gonna do about it? Crash the ship out of spite? Perhaps they really did need a pilot. Of course, he needed a job too so he was not about to turn down a silver platter when he saw one.

"Seems mighty fair to me. I 'preciate you giving me the consideration," he said, digging out the requested information from inside a pocket on his coat. Well, at least as much as could be carried around these days. "Make any inquiries you'd like. I had some trouble in my younger days, then some more trouble we all called a war I guess. Been good at keepin' my nose clean since though."

He had to as a matter of survival. Contrary to what the propagandists promised, the Alliance never forgave and never forgot. Just because they weren't actively hunting you across a battlefield didn't mean they couldn't find other ways to ensure you lived in hell.

"Do you mind if I wait around?," he asked, "I'd be interested to meet the Cap'n if he has time. If not, well just lemme know if I should stash my gear in the ship or screw off somewheres else."
Tommy Pearson


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"A few, yeah," Tommy replied, seeming to notice the cast for the first time, but deciding it would be rude to jump straight into asking about it. Instead he kept the conversation on what seemed to be of mutual interest to the two.

"I passed my qualifications for the Firefly," he left out that that training had been received during the war, when Firefly Class ships were popular among the Independents as an answer to Alliance spacecraft, "but if I'm bein honest, my trade was in the Komodo way back when. Always did admire these gals from afar though."

Though there was a wistful tone in his voice, his expression remained a bit on the darker side as memories came flooding back of the war. He still dreamed of the day his pilot had been killed and he had to seize control of the craft before it killed him and every other soul aboard. Some nights, he wasn't fast enough. Even then he considered himself one of the lucky ones. A lot more on both sides came back from the war with more than an occasional bad dream.

"Handlin' is a bit different. Then again so is everything these days," he glanced again towards Yuri's cast, "your pilot planning on taking a vacation?"
Tommy Pearson


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Tommy had been staring up at the ship for a few minutes without even realizing it. He had been running down a checklist in his head based on the appearance of the ship and what it might be used for. True, when he looked closer she wasn't exactly in pristine condition anymore, but he didn't see any obvious marks of trouble either. One of the ship's crew must have noticed, and Tommy had been about to turn around and leave in embarrassment for staring when the man waved him over. Thinking there would be no trouble from having a conversation with the man, he approached but kept a respectful distance between himself and the other man.

"Sumthin' like that," he said in response to Yuri's question, turning his eyes back to the China Doll, "Firefly model, Series... 3? Unless I'm losin the good part of mah brain."

"This might actually be the first ship I've seen today that don't look like it'll lose half it's passengers out the side breaking for the black," he said, continuing to stare at the ship, "pilot could use a stick on the back of their knuckles though. No offense intended, but jus' cause she's built like a brick don't mean you can handle her like a brick without the wear and tear on those engines."

He seemed to realize that he was talking to a stranger, quickly turned back towards the man and lifted his hat in a measure of respect. "I'm sorry, here I am spoutin the negative when I haven't even told you mah name. Tommy. Tommy Pearson," he said, holding out his hand, "bit of an amateur ship enthusiast and a reasonably talented pilot. Just ask me how talented, I'll tell ya."

Tommy was grinning at the last remark, attempting to show some good humor to the stranger.
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