Engineering Disasters

Posted on Fri Nov 23rd, 2018 @ 9:19pm by Jeassaho Kea (*) & Anthony Hooks

Mission: Mission 8 - Shattered
Location: SS Mary Rose, Main Engineering
Timeline: MD 01 :: 10:00
1424 words - 2.8 OF Standard Post Measure

"...too bright...", Anthony Hooks thought, as he tightly scrunched his eyes closed and grimaced. He didn't know where he was and felt hungover. A part of his mind automatically began to rate it against other recent hangovers and determined it was in the top three of the last year or so. He felt around cautiously, eyes still closed, to determine if he was alone. Instead of feeling sheets, cushions, or a companion, his hand discovered deck plating. "Top two..." he muttered and regretted it instantly. The croaked whisper would have been barely audible to anyone nearby, but it briefly cranked the stabbing pain in his head up a notch. Quietly freezing in place to avoid aggravating his condition, he tried to regulate his breathing and piece together what had led him to this. After a couple of minutes, he shifted to a more comfortable position and cracked one eye open experimentally. Surviving this with only a slight increase in discomfort, he opened both eyes slowly and recognized his surroundings - Engineering. He remembered now. The last thing he could recall was thermally scanning some of the critical power systems when he began to feel faint. His last thought was to change the scanner's settings to check air quality, but he had fumbled and dropped the scanner instead and had blacked out. He sat up to look for his scanner and was rewarded with a surge of nausea and vertigo. Again, he froze and managed his breathing carefully until the tingling in his cheeks (something he typically felt right before vomiting) subsided. He saw the scanner lying just out of reach and scooted on the floor until he could recover it. As he grabbed it, he noticed from his new vantage point that a pair of feet were protruding from behind a console stand. "...Angus?" he whispered, "Is that you?"

Angus was draped over one of the consoles, foot sticking out in an odd manner, when he stirred at the sound of Hooks' voice. "Can' get the sensor manifold t'-" He stood up quick with a start, before his body gave out and he was on the ground again. "Blasted sabatoge. Y'all wouldn't be catchin' this on the cargo vessels. Jus' a buncha pirates. All t'pirates... Oi, where'd that bossy blue boy go? Jeass?" His voice cracked as he raised his voice. "Engineerin', sound off!"

Jeassaho was lying stunned on the floor behind the console. It was a small space but suited her just fine and it was possibly why she hadn't been taken when others had been because they missed her. "I'm here." She finally called trying to get out of the space she had been stood looking over when the gas had hit.

Hooks made old man noises as he stood himself up and tried to shake off the after-effects of the gas. He looked himself and his personal gear over quickly. "Should I feel insulted that no one took advantage while I was out?", he said jokingly. "Angus, I think the blue individual you refer to went to the bridge right before this happened. Can you reach out to the other departments? I don't know everyone here well enough to do ship-wide roll call, but someone ought to."

"Bossy blue's on his own then," Angus pointed out, standing himself upright. It looked like they were the only three in the area, which was good. On one hand, where did the rest of the crew go? On the other, it was fewer people to keep track of. "We shoul' feel out the situation first, I think. We had someone on the ship tryna attack us earlier. Oy, wasn't Ops messin' with the wall comms? We migh' have ta find a way to them."

Jeassaho stumbled up and winced at the fact she must have hit her head at some point. She slowly moved the nearest console and looked it over. "The ship seems to be calm." The console readings were all normal for a ship that seemed docked. But the question was where were they docked to?

Hooks scowls as he ponders their predicament, then he steps up to the nearest vacant console and checks his access rights. Liking what he sees, he grins and starts tapping away rapidly at his station for a bit. After about two minutes of work, he steps back and says "Yup, we have SOMETHING we can try. Terribly unethical...whether or not it works without bricking the comm system, we'd be opening ourselves up to legal issues with every sentient creature on this ship...are you interested?" When he gets blank stares from his cohorts, Hooks elaborates a bit. "I was able to pull up an antiquated maintenance program from an archived copy of the ship's preventative maintenance systems. It was discontinued because of a few instances where it was used for illicit purposes. What I'm referring to is a ship-wide console test procedure that can force every communications console into open-mic mode while also sending a series of tones out. Each console would play and simultaneously receive the tones, so it was able to do a complete comm system check quickly and accurately. What caused it to be discontinued is the ability to tamper with the test program and only do the open-mic action...no tones. It allowed someone to listen in anywhere there was a comm mic. With the proper tweaking, the tool could even access camera feeds, if the comm stations came with them. If we don't do it right, we risk corrupting the comm system in a way that takes a lot of work to recover from. If it works, then we're instant felons for violating all sorts of privacy laws. What do you think?"

"What do we need that fer?" Angus waved a hand from Hooks. "Besides, all a whatcha jus' said only works if we got all dat open with Ops. Which means we need an Ops type t'open it up." He hissed through his teeth. "And all of them are probably up toward the Bridge, aren't they? Or at least the ones we're after. Somethin' doesn' add up here."

Hooks actually looks wounded by the response. "What I'm proposing should allow us to bypass the need for Ops. If we could take over the comm boxes, we could listen in and see what's going on before putting ourselves at ri...". Hooks' voice trails off as he gives up on trying to sell his idea to folks that obviously aren't buying. "...fine. FINE! I WILL GO TO THE BRIDGE! If there were people up there that actually gave a crap and could reach out to us, they probably would have, but sure...I'll go see what's what. Maybe everything's fine...or maybe I'll get shot in the face by a saboteur, or a space pirate, or whatever...I dunno.". Hooks grabs up his gear and storms toward the exit, completely ignoring anything the others here have to say in response. On his way out, he can be heard muttering "...mom and pops were so frikken right. Shoulda stuck with the family business. Goddamn space relic should be parked in a museum...".

Once out in the hall, as the door seals shut behind him, Hooks stops and wrestles with his anger. It takes him a moment to stop cursing under his breath and gesturing rudely at the door that just closed. Once he works through that, he takes in the silence around him and decides he'd better arm himself, just in case. From his kit, he pulls out a worn-looking plasma cutter with the initials 'T.H.' scratched onto it's handle and proceeds to move as quietly as possible toward the turbo lift that would take him to the bridge. As he moves, he picks out fall-back points to use in case things go sideways.

It felt ridiculous to be creeping through the halls wielding a cutting tool, but the situation was just too weird. Hooks had no idea what to expect. Part of him wanted to call out for anyone within earshot to respond, while another part of him wanted to pry open a maintenance access cover and crawl through conduit risers all the way up to the bridge level. He hoped to get to the bridge without encountering any unpleasant surprises and ask them what the hell was happening.

OFF::

Angus Ap Owen
Engineer
SS Mary Rose
(PNPC Uhin)

Jeassaho Kea
Engineer
SS Mary Rose
(PNPC Gregnol)

Anthony Hooks
Engineer
SS Mary Rose