She turns her head, spearing the newcomer with her gaze next. The chief mechanic flinches. "... Ma'am, he's not lying. Sir Salimus hit his head when the terrorists started bombing us. He only woke up a short time ago. He wasn't the pilot."
Kron blinks, releasing the knight as she considers this. "Who was then?" No one seems to have an answer.
Then, as if on cue, the hatch of the prototype cracks open. Every eye in the crowd stares as a small figure is revealed in the mecha's strange harness apparatus. The figure struggles to remove the machine's opaque, in-built helmet, connected as it to the prototype is by numerous wires. When the figure finally manages it, the face that's revealed is shockingly young. Painfully aware of the watching crowd, the young girl floats her way out of the cockpit, hesitating cringingly at the very lip.
Narrowing her eyes again, Captain Kron surges up, using the open cockpit hatch to pull herself to a stop right in front of the girl... with a gun in her free hand. The girl recoils, falling back into the cockpit as if she might find some escape there. She finds none. "You're one of the civilian techs," Kron begins. "Are you aware what the punishment for hijacking Divine Navy Property is?" Truthfully, she doesn't relish the girl's abject terror. Although she is sad not to have seen Salimus's expression when he stopped to consider why, precisely, Kron had brought a sidearm with her when she'd set out to upbraid him.
"I—" the girl stares silently for a further moment, then an angry flush comes into her face. "I was just trying to protect the ship! My friends are here!"
