The Only Way Is Down

Posted on Wed Jul 10th, 2019 @ 5:11pm by Ensign Lea Talbot (*) & Lieutenant Commander Ranav Voss M.D. & Lieutenant Hachirou Takeshi & Lieutenant Vissia zh'Cliasa

Mission: Cosmos
Location: Seabase
Timeline: MD04 11:25
2442 words - 4.9 OF Standard Post Measure

Vissia had lead the group that was going to engineering out into the corridor from the transporter room. The corridor was set to low illumination and the sunlight coming through the water made it quite the sight. She felt the need to pause for a second and just take it all in. It was almost as beautiful to her as the fields of ice and snow on Andor. After a few moments, she glanced back at the others. "Let's go see if the lift is working, that way we don't have to head down seventeen decks."

Lea nodded at the Senior Officer as she tried to peer through the darkness and see what was there. "This place is so freaky Sirs." She whispered as she took her finger off her rifle and just stared like the Engineer at the place. It would have been an amazing place to work day in day out but she preferred the stars.

Ranav glanced around curiously waving his tricorder around as he did, "this place is eerily empty."

He walked around and over to one of the consoles. "This console is still open like someone was just here." He pressed his lips together and then continued, "wait someone is operating it right now!"

"No offence Doctor, but let the engineer take a look," Vissia approached the wall console, there was indeed some activity but she wasn't convinced someone was accessing the console remotely. She scanned it with her tricorter. "I realize I'm not the ranking officer, but we should continue on to engineering. I can check the computer system and access logs from there. As for you two, where's your sense of adventure?"

"Last adventure I was on," Ranav said shaking his head, "I had crew leaving in body bags."

Aki shot an amused look to the ranking officer, shrugging. "First mission I was on this other Intrepid had us in the middle of a living planet that almost digested us with giant underground worms. That was exciting. Ey," he continued, turning to Vissia, "I got a little experience with some of the engineering stuff. You want a hand?"

"I grew up on Andor, between makra and glikar'ma I learned how to protect myself," She said with a chuckle. "As far as that console, it could be someone accessing it but it's a common console in an area that would be frequented by any visitors to this base. Accessing secure information would be a challenge. It could also be a program to make it look like someone is accessing it or an explanation I haven't come up with yet. Either way, I have a better shot at figuring it out in engineering where I'd have direct access to the computer core."

The group of them arrived at the lift and she took a moment to check the controls before hitting the call button. to bring the lift to them. The door opened mere moments after she hit the chime, meaning the lift was already waiting. It made her antenna twitch as she looked over at the small control panel on the outside. The lift could have been there the entire time, if everyone had gone to the transporter to evacuate it would have made sense. She took a deep breath and stepped inside first, before moving over to the command panel and pulled up the usage logs and sent them to her tricorder.

"Next stop engineering!"

"And I am here for protection detail," Lea commented on as if she wondered if they had forgotten the woman stood there holding a phaser. "For all, we know it could be the other team." The woman added as the door to the lift opened.

"Could be," the doctor replied as he entered the lift, "I guess we will find out soon enough."

Aki followed close behind, holding the strap to his bag over his shoulder and chuckling. "Don't worry Doc, we'll be fine. I got a sixth sense about these things. Besides, I'm not dying today." He grinned. "Just found out an old friend of mine reappeared and I have all intention of bugging the crap out of him. So I can't die till I do that. Just call me your good luck charm."

The half Bolion chuckled and shook his head, "can always use one of those."

Lea found herself smiling at the thought of a good luck charge. It would be handy when the Security Officer felt like she was at the beginning of a horror film. "Me too." The woman agreed as she tried to make herself smaller so they could all fit properly into the lift. "Breath in everyone." She grinned.

"Just hope you don't turn out to be our albatross," Vissia chimed in, glancing over at Aki and smirking slightly. "Of course that's only if you end up dead, so if you don't we'll make it."

"I don't think I understand the reference. Albatross?" Lea asked as the doors closed finally and the turbo lift slowly made its way to Engineering. The place seemed so old and slow compared to what they were used to.

"The Albatross is a bird I think," the doctor replied furrowing his brow, "rhyme of the ancient mariner, right?" He shook his head, "it's quite the appropriate reference seeing we are surrounded by salt water."

"It is a bird, on earth and yes that's the poem. A sailor shoots an albatross following the ship that leads to the ship befalling a great many tragedies that leads to the crew deaths. I always liked ancient earth literature and took two semesters of it in the academy," Vissia said, fairly proud of herself.

Aki held up a finger. "Okay, but, I can't die, albatross or not. I got someone to tell I'm catching up on his rank faster than I think he realizes. So this is all a moot point, we're all living."

The Doctor chuckled, "to some extent."

He glanced around the lift and furrowed his brow. The ceiling was missing a piece of tile, odd but if repairs were needed it may not have been put back, "We should be there by now shouldn't we?"

"Older systems." The security Officer commented on. This place had to be at the end of its life if not over it. Everything looked at least pre Dominion War and that was saying something. Made her wonder what this base would have done in the war.

"Old doesn't mean that it's bad," Vissia's antenna turned inward towards each other as she glanced at the security officer and flashed her a smile. "The lift is moving a little slow due to the base being in low power mode. It's have to power up sections as we move into them and is shutting them down behind us in an effort to conserve energy. We'll be in engineering in three minutes."

Lea stared back at the woman and shrugged. It was a reason and the less scary of all the reasons she could think of. "Can you smell that?" The woman finally said as she sniffed the air. Something putrid had suddenly started to fill the small space where the four officers were.

"Smell it? How do I avoid it? Ugh!" pulling up the rear, Aki waved a hand in front of his face before pausing, and covering his nose and mouth with the same hand. Muffled through his fingers, the trio could hear a stifled. "That isn't what I think that is, is it?"

Vissia's antenna arched backwards as the smell hit her nose, it was unpleasant and she was already working on scanning to try and figure out what it was. That was Commander Voss' skill set more than her's, but the smell was familiar to her in all the wrong ways. "It smells like death..."

"That it does," the blue man said with a dismayed nod, "can we stop the lift, we need to find out what or who is giving off the smell." He looked over at the Andorian, "human death to be more precise."

"You would know better than I," Vissia answered the doctor, she'd seen death but not enough to identify species by the smell of their decay.

She was already working on stopping the lift, the entire lift came to a sudden, jarring halt that nearly threw them all to the floor. The door opened and there was about fifteen centimeter step up. The only light was what was pouring out from the turbolift and it was clear not much sun light got down this far. She pulled out a light from her engineering kit and turned it on, shining it in the hallway. The smell seemed just as strong in the hallway, which was odd for a base this size.

"We're two decks above the fusion reactor, if i remember the schematics there is a maintenance bay, a cargo transporter and storage," Vissia said.

Voss nodded, "we better check them all, I'll call for body bags when we find the victim's."

Lea looked unimpressed at the sudden stop and banging her head but said nothing as she stepped up offering her hand to anyone to help them up if they need it. Her phaser rifle had a small light on but it was nothing that helped pierce through the semi-darkness. "How creepy." She mused.

"Anyway to get the lights back on?" The half Bolian asked as he stepped off of the lift and tilted his head. Ranav grabbed his tricorder and began scanning, "my readings are erratic, any of you getting the same thing?" For a moment he felt something like a breeze but saw nothing and he raised an eyebrow, "is there a venting system open"

"Something is interfering with the tricorter, but I can't quite figure it out," Vissia had climbed out of the lift on her own but had nodded to Lea her thanks for the offer of a hand, even if she didn't need it. "The power should be a simple matter of turning it back on."

"We are out of communication range with the ship by the way." The Security Officer commented on reminding them all that now that they were so far down on minimal power that the communication ray wasn't operational.

Vissia walked up to one of the wall panels and brought it out of stand by, she found the commands for the level and tried to activate the power, the console beeped at her and she growled at it before running through a few things. With the fusion core down, it was a challenge. She finally was able to isolate the lights and get them turned on but that was it.

"I can't turn the heat on, but we've got lights," Vissia said with a satisfied grunt.

"Hey uh, guys?" Over the small comms unit, Aki's voice could be heard. "Uh guys... the uh... the elevator turned itself back on before I could get out, closed the door on me. Y'all don't mind... helpin' a pilot out right? I know we had our albatross debate, but pilots wear red and that usually spells danger for-" A scream cut through the comms as the sound metal screeching against metal echoed through the room.

Ranav turned allmost immediately after the voice came on, more to see if he could see the pilot. In the restored light he could see the turbolift door and his brow furrowed as he listened. When he understood what was going on he rushed to the door as if he could somehow pop it open pressing buttons and trying to use brute force to open the jammed entryway. Then there was the scraping sound followed by the frightful scream and his efforts became more frantic, "any idea how to open this?"

Vissia moved to the turbolift, her instincts told her to force the door but she kept herself calm as she took a deep breath. "I don't have the tools to cut or force it, but we could try to manually release the doors. He was inside the lift, that screeching sounded like the breaks kicking in meaning he might just have been jarred around. Our better option might be to find stairs and head down."

"I don't think there are stairs." The Security Officer mumbled to herself as she heard the scream. She hoped that the man was okay and that it was just the fright.

Vissia looked over at the security officer for a moment, before she shook her head, "There are maintenance access points, jeffery's tubes... Taking the ladder in the lift shaft down won't get us to a spot where we can get him out. Cutting through the door will be easier than cutting through the top of the lift."

"Whichever," Ranav said still trying to get the doors open, "the sooner the better."

Vissia resisted the urge to growl at the Doctor, she hated not being the ranking officer. It meant she wasn't able to call the shots like she wanted to. "We shouldn't split up, there's a maintenance entrance not far up the corridor. I'll go alone if I have to but I'd rather not."

"I was trying to get one or the other done," the physician responded tilting his head, "our pilot is at best trapped, at worst dead, we need to get him out."

"If he's dead, we can't help him and wasting our energy trying isn't wise. If he's alive, we need to get to him but keep our wits about us," Vissia spoke up. "I can't order you to come Doctor, you out rank me but I studied this base and I'm a damn good engineer. Trust me. Let's head down."

Lea looked at the Engineer and rolled her eyes. Like she was going to let the man go into the darkness all by himself. "Let's go. Like I am going to let you go by yourself." The woman commented on.

The physician took in a deep breath and started following. He wasn't exactly sure following was any better than staying, "down it is then." He gave a look back at the lift and shook his head, "this is not going to be an easy one."

"They never are Doc, they never are," Vissia replied, before turning and starting down the corridor into the unknown.

OFF::

Ensign Lea Talbot
Security
USS Cosmos
(PNPC Gregnol)

Lieutenant Commander Ranav Voss M.D.
Chief Medical Officer
USS Cosmos
(PCNPC Jasper)

Lieutenant Vissia zh'Cliasa
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Cosmos
(PCNPC Tucker)

Lieutenant JG Akihito Takeshi
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Cosmos
(PNPC Uhin)