He looked up from the console he was leaning over trying to make sense of the readings and smiled as he saw her. "Nice to meet you Ashlan," he said, half considering offering to shake her hand before remembering all the oil on his hands. "Sorry about the state of my clothes, I was repairing an engine before..." he paused, trying to remember how he'd got there and failing. "Well, before I wound up here. I'm an engineer on a merchant ship, been part of the merchant navy for as long as I can remember, I was even born on a merchant craft." He grunted as the computer was unresponsive again. "This doesn't make sense, this must be human technology cos all the writing is in English, but I've never seen a computer system like it. Maybe you'll be more persuasive with this thing than I've been." He continued trying to get something on the ship to switch on and smiled as the screen at the centre of the bridge flickered into life, showing the space ahead of them. "Well, that's more like it," he said, looking up as the image cleared. Arrayed in front of them were a selection of ships, ranging from small passenger shuttles to hulking military battleships. "Well, now how did..." A chill ran through his veins as he read the readings the scanners were giving off. To anyone but a merchant they were meaningless, but he knew what he was reading. "I hate to sound really cliched but...Houston, we have a problem." He tried firing up the engines, grunting as they struggled to fire properly. "We need to reverse, quickly, doesn't matter what direction we go as long as its away from those ships."