Shira's mind was somewhere outside of her body. She was immersed in a web of readouts, video, and data. So much data, it was impossible for her human mind to properly parse it all. Neuro-digital interfaces had advanced rapidly in the age of space travel, but they would never enable a human mind to be as fast or as calculating as a computer. Instead, Shira's mind was playing the part of the mythical strong AI, making decisions based on a worldview and perspective that an AI would lack - supported and aided in those decisions by another, actual AI system that could handle all the heavy lifting of data analysis. It was a "good enough" compromise between the dangers of letting a computer make ethically-weighted decisions and not leveraging that power. The latter meant nothing would ever get done. The former led to systems making logically superior and sound decisions, but could ultimately negatively impact humanity. Or, as one engineer put it, "fuck your three laws."<br/><br/>"Begin first jump." Shira had total control over the system from her console, but it required the pilot to actually jump. She could cancel a jump instantaneously the moment anything went wrong, so she technically didn't even need the pilot to tell her anything. But even that had a small lag time - less than human reactions, but still enough to be a problem. Having a pilot operate everything was meant to better simulate a more real environment, but Shira still felt like it was too early for that. Not to mention the Dart drive seemed to have...strange idiosyncrasies. Previous tests and examinations had shown it to act differently next to certain fields of mass and even people. Someone, somewhere, probably knew why, but they weren't sharing.<br/><br/>She got a ping from the system, and then multiple more within the span of milliseconds as the mech moved with the drive. Power up, execution, exit, power down. All accompanied by the drive on the mech's back glowing with more intensity, a flash of bluish light, the mech instantly moving from it's initial position to near the front of the ship. and the drive returning back to it's softer glow. With in-atmosphere tests, the sound was always some sort of cross between a deep elastic twang and a digitized spring-like sound. In space, no such thing. Shira's mind looked over all the data coming in. The pilot seemed to be alive, the mech was still functioning properly. The drive had calmed, but there was some sort of strange resonance that quickly went away the moment her mind even began to perceive it. Luckily, they had historical data. She'd just need to call up the last second later on.<br/><br/>"Pilot Markin, report."