Posted by Captain Rende Asam (Commanding Officer) in Main Sim - Engineering

Posted by Master Chief Petty Officer Karl Johansson (Chief Engineer) in Main Sim - Engineering

Posted by Master Chief Petty Officer Karl Johansson (Chief Engineer) in Main Sim - Engineering
Posted by… suppressed (46) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Engineering was being inundated with calls to report glitching monitors and read outs. The most recent one came from sickbay. [O]Sickbay to Engineering. We’re having some sort of odd malfunction with one of our monitors.[o]

-OZ

On the back of that request another came from the bridge. [O]Asam to Johansson. What can you do to the deflector and shields? We’re going into the nebula.[c]

Cpt. Asam, CO

The chorus of calls hadn’t stopped — Sickbay, Science labs, even auxiliary stations in the lower decks were reporting the same thing: monitors flickering, diagnostic readouts spitting phantom errors, systems behaving as if caught in overlapping echoes.

Then it hit closer to home.

The impulse control console at the heart of Engineering shivered with a burst of static, panels stuttering in sync with the disturbances rolling through the ship. Status lights for the port engine went amber, then red.

Impulse Drive Status: OFFLINE.

A low vibration tremored through the deck plates, the faint thrum of the engines fading until it was gone altogether. For a heartbeat, the entire room was quiet — no steady hum, no familiar rhythm of the drives. Just the ship’s background life support systems holding steady.

Emergency readouts painted the picture in stark terms:

Power flow diverted mid-cycle, relays tripped.

Control circuits unresponsive to reset.

Restart attempt: INHIBITED — error code cycling too fast to track.

And through it all, a subtle distortion ghosted across the deflector diagnostic panel — the same interference Johansson had just been asked to brace against for the Veil.

The Sentinel now had shields, deflectors, and warp power. But impulse? Dead.

-OZ

[O]Engineering, what happened to the engines?![C] She wasn’t waiting for answer. It was clear she expected them back on before they ever went out.

Cpt. Asam, CO

[O] Engineering here, Captain. We’ve got shields back up, but I’m getting some strange readings on diagnostics… Impulse Engines aren’t responding at all, I’m trying to reroute power and get them restarted. Stand by. [C]

Franklin swore quietly to himself, and began the start up procedure for the Impulse Drive while keeping one eye on the Diagnostic panels. “C’mon Darlin’ don’t do me like that…” He muttered, checking power levels. The interference on the Deflector screen panel caught his eye and he stared for a moment, brown eyes focusing as he ran through another diagnostic. Checking the Warp Core, he briefly wondered if he could shunt power to the Impulse Drive through the backup relays… The silence and lack of vibration made him unconsciously nervous, his feet unused to feeling nothing through the deck plates.

-CPO Franklin, Engineering

Hugh was scratching his head trying to figure out what was wrong with the impulse engines but he couldn’t get a diagnostic to tell him anything. As he looked over, he said, “Chief, I’m at a loss as to what is happening.”

MacClure, Engineer

“One of us ought to get to deck one and manually check the impulse drive…” Franklin glanced at MacClure, the concern showing on his face. “Where’s the Chief?”

-CPO Franklin, Engineering

A hatch to one of the maintenance shafts hissed open, and Karl pulled himself free “You try to get some quality maintenance done and my engine bay falls apart” He muttered to himself, but the annoyed words did not match the smile on his face. He half-leapt half half-jogged to check the maintenance display, stroking the console absently as he read “Franklin take a team and check the Imp drive” He said as he tried to enlarge and pause the error message “MacClure check the relays that tripped, I’ll see to the control circuits, everyone grab a communicator if you’re leaving home” He made his decisions quickly.

Master Chief Karl - CE

“Aye Chief,” Hugh replied as he got up to go inspect all the relays.

MacClure, Engineer

“Aye sir.” Franklin nodded to Karl, and went to the nearest equipment locker. He pulled out two communicators and turned back. “Mac, heads up..” James tossed one of the communicators to MacClure, grinning. Then he headed for the hatch, opening the remaining communicator and hailing two on duty crewmen to meet him on deck one to inspect the Impulse drive.

-CPO Franklin, Engineer

Hugh grabbed the communicator out of the air and nodded.

MacClure, Engineer

Karl grabbed his own kit and a communicator “Alright let’s get our girl back in fighting form” He called out to the team.

Master Chief Karl - CE

The silence of the drive chamber stretched — too long, too empty. For a ship this size, the absence of vibration was like a heartbeat gone still.

MacClure’s relay inspection revealed a mess of tripped circuits, but the pattern wasn’t random. They’d blown in sequence, like dominoes tipped one after another, each cascading failure already queued before the last collapsed.

On Franklin’s trek toward Deck One, the impulse corridor felt wrong beneath the boots. The lights stuttered, flickering not with power loss but with a strange doubling effect — as if two overlapping versions of the same space were fighting for primacy. His tricorder scan caught it: relay feeds pulsing on and off in microbursts too fast for human eyes to track, each flicker generating phantom readings in the surrounding bulkheads.

And at the main console Karl examined, the “cycling” error finally stilled long enough for a message to appear, just a breath longer than a blink.

ERROR: INPUT ANTICIPATED.

Then it was gone. The restart inhibit resumed, codes scrolling too quickly to follow.

For an instant, though — for anyone near the board — it hadn’t looked like code at all.
More like letters forming. Words. Shapes.

And always, just at the edge of hearing, that low vibration. Not from the core. Not from the drives. From somewhere else, threading through the hull itself.

EvilJen, DDoSFEO

Karl scrunched his face at the screen. He had the superstitious nature of an old school engineer, truly believing in the spirit of his engines, which meshed well with his Icelandic sense of The supernatural might just be real, so let’s not kick the moss-covered rock because Elves might just live there so when the code seemed to become words, he felt a cold chill, the hair on the back of his neck rise. He stroked the side of the console “What’s wrong Lady?” He said in a whisper, then tapped on the console, trying to bypass the error scroll to see the problem

Master Chief Karl - CE

For a heartbeat, the hum beneath Karl’s fingertips felt like it answered.

Not the mechanical rhythm of power cycling through conduits — this was subtler. Warmer. Almost a pulse. The metal seemed to breathe beneath his touch, exhaling a faint shimmer of static across his knuckles.

The bypass command stuttered, then forced its way through. For a moment, the scroll froze. Lines of data rearranged themselves into coherence.

DIAGNOSTIC ROUTINE INTERRUPTED.
LOCAL CONTROL PRIVILEGES: OVERRIDDEN.
QUERY: WHO IS ASKING?

Then the console blinked out. Total black.

Around him, a soft creak rolled through the deck plating — the kind of sound that normally meant heat expansion, except this carried through every conduit like a voice too large to fit inside the ship. The low vibration returned, just beneath audible range, crawling along the metal of the room.

At the far side of Engineering, one of the plasma conduits flickered and bled faint blue light from its seals, not rupturing — just weeping. The glow pulsed in slow, even rhythm, like a heartbeat matching the unseen thrum beneath the ship’s skin.

The error lights across the board came back online one by one, but not in Starfleet-standard amber or red. They glowed a soft, unsettling violet — the color of the nebula outside.

OOC: Started a separate thread for Franklin’s team here: https://www.star-fleet.com/core/stf5/sentinel/posts/282614/?page=1

EvilJen, DDoSFEO

Karl hesitated as he stared at the console, he could feel cold sweat dripping down his back, that was not normal. He’d seen odd things throughout his years in the Fleet but nothing like this. He glanced back, trying his best to hide his nerves.

He tapped on the console, typing his reply with one hand as the other tried to find out what was going on with the lights.

RESPONSE: CHIEF ENGINEER KARL

Master Chief Karl - CE

The moment Karl’s fingers pressed the final key, the console paused mid-blink. The entire wall of displays went still, as if the ship had taken a breath and was waiting for something.

Then, letter by letter, a reponse.

ACKNOWLEDGED.
KARL.

The name lingered too long on the screen before the pixels wavered faintly and reformed into new text — as though the system were tasting it.

YOU HEAR THEM TOO.

Behind him, the violet-lit conduits pulsed once. Twice. A third time. The pulsing was in perfect sync with the faint, low thrum that had been crawling through the deck plating since the first failure. Only now it wasn’t faint — it was inside the room.

Beyond the bulkhead came the familiar chunk of a distant relay engaging, even though Karl hadn’t triggered any manual resets. The drives were no longer silent like they should be. They began to hum again in uneven bursts, an imperfect match to the ship’s cadence - its heartbeat.

Then the console flickered again, as the lights dimmed.

DON’T LET THEM WAKE IT.

Static rippled across the screens. The text dissolved. Power readings blinked back to normal — but the hum didn’t stop.

It was still there, running just below the range of the human ear. A subsonic whisper threading through the hull.

Karl stared at the screen for a few seconds in silence, then slowly let go and stepped back “Nope” He said, grabbed his communicator and flipped it open. [O]Karl to Bridge, my engine is talking to me” His voice was even but monotonous, which was odd for the usually eternally cheerful Engineer “It gave a warning: Don’t Let Them Wake It. I’m not certain if we are the them, nor what It is but I’m hearing things “He tried to give the best information without succumbing to the panic that was creeping up “I’m not certain if I’m suffering from auditory or visual hallucinations, it might be best to have Medical send someone down here[O]

Master Chief Karl - CE

The yeoman’s voice came back of the comms. [O] Acknowledged chief. We’ll have someone down their right away.[C]

Yeoman Rand

If she were honest she had been glad to get off the bridge. She had needed that solo walk to clear her mind and let go of the anger and fear that the captain’s actions had stirred in her. At one point on her way down, she had slipped into a nook in the corriodr and closed her yes, resting a hand on her abdomen, hoping to keep her stomach under control. She wasn’t normally so easily affected by the emotions of others, but these were not usual times.

A few minutes later, Leah arrived, med kit in hand and surveyed engineering. “You rang for Medical?” she said.

~Leah Hart, NP

Hugh looked up from where he was working to see the Medical person walk in but he did not have time for that, this systematic tripping of relays was really getting on his nerves.

MacClure, Engineer

Every time MacClure reset a section, another two seemed to drop offline in sequence — but not randomly. They tripped in pattern.

Cpt. Asam, CO

Karl had been pacing around the panel muttering to himself with arms crossed, getting more and more annoyed, “Hmm yes, me.” He looked at Hart “The screen sent a message, responded to queries, then I heard a sound, like breathing or humming. Or well it’s been a constant sound but it dissipated and resumed with the replies” He put hands on hips and faced her.

Master Chief Karl - CE

Leah frowned and tried to match the info with what she had seen thus far. Pulling out her tricorder, she gave Karl a nod. “Well, let’s see if there’s anything obvious, shall we?,” she said as she started scanning. “When you said the screen sent a message, what do you mean?”

~Leah Hart, NP

Karl gave the nurse a thoughtful frown “I meant it quite literally.” He waved generally to the console in question but didn’t physically touch it “I was trying to figure out why it was running through a cycling error loop. Then it asked for input. I didn’t think much of it, so I just tried to bypass it. When I did, it made a query, asked who was asking.” He smiled, sheepishly, but it felt forced “So I answered, it acknowledged my reply” He shuddered “Then it asked if I Heard them too then finally it warned me do not let them wake it which is what I told the Bridge”

Karl’s readings were a little off baseline, his blood pressure was higher, and his heart rate was rapid. He had raised adrenal and cortisol levels. He might only look tense, a little uncomfortable, but the readings showed that he was terrified.

Master Chief Karl - CE

His readings were consistent with a severe stress response. Given the odd things happening on this ship, she understood completely.

Reaching out she touched two fingers to his elbow and gestured for him to follow her. Leah only moved far enough away that that they could speak privately.

“Chief,” she said softly. “We’ll see what is happening around here but I need you to do me a favour before we continue. You need to take some steady and deep breaths for me. I would prefer you lot to have a cardiac event in the middle of this emergency if we can help it, yes?” She would give him something if needed, but right now she felt he needed to find some calm first. Or at least try.

~Leah Hart, NP

Karl blinked at her words, it took him a moment to register what she said. So he smiled, a sheepish grin “Of course” He closed his eyes and breathed, slow, deep breaths. He’d gotten the breathing exercise from a combat medic years ago during his Celeborn days. It took him a full minute to calm himself properly, rein in his fear. He’d always been good at putting on a brave face especially when afraid, but it had been this unsettled since Donatu. He shook his head and grinned “No heart attacks today” He said cheerfully. His heartbeat had slowed but was still fast, residuals of the hormones in his system.

Master Chief Karl - CE

She gave him a grin and a nod. “Good. Now, clearly the crew is being affected by something external and people trying o figure that out. There’s only so much I can do here, but I’d like to stay a little bit and just observe and see if I can’t gather some more info that might be useful to the others. I promise to not get in your way if I can help it.”

~Leah Hart, NP

The consoles around Karl flickered again — just once, like a shiver running through the circuitry — then everything went too still. No error lights. No hum. No ambient vibration.

Just silence.

Then the text returned.
Not on the main console this time.
On every console.

One by one, each inactive display sparked to life with a single line of text, all appearing in perfect unison:

K A R L.

The letters stretched slightly, as though pressing outward from inside the screen.

Then a second line appeared beneath it — fragmented, flickering, as if the ship herself had to force the words through interference:

YOU DO NOT HAVE MUCH TIME.

A faint metallic groan rolled through Engineering — deep, resonant, like the hull shifting under immense pressure. But the sensors showed no structural strain. No gravitational anomaly. Nothing at all.

The lights dimmed.
The violet pulse from the conduits flared once, sharply — like a warning.

Every console flashed a final message:

ANSWER.

Then all screens went dead again—waiting.

EvilJen, DDoSFEO

When the screens lit up with his name, Karl yelped in surprise, a high-pitched curse in his native language. But he hesitated only for a moment and ran to the console

He tapped quickly

QUERY: WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?

Master Chief Karl - CE

The console didn’t flicker this time.
It jerked—like something had shoved the data aside to make room.

Karl’s input registered, the text holding steady for half a breath before the screen washed to black.
A thin line of white light appeared in the center.
Then another below it.
Then another.

Three lines.
Beating.
Pulsing.
Like breaths.
Like a sleeping creature’s lungs.

The lines bent, reshaped, and formed words.

STOP THEM.

Static burst across the surrounding consoles — not random, but synchronized, echoing the pulse of the manifold on Deck One. Each pulse brought another word:

THEY ARE TOUCHING IT.
THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND.
IT IS NOT SAFE.

A deep vibration rolled through the deck plates, strong enough to rattle Karl’s tools. Far away — too far for any normal sound to travel — something metallic boomed, like a distant knock against the hull.

The text on the screen tightened into a single urgent line:

CALL THEM BACK.

Then:

NOW.

The moment the last word appeared, the emergency channel on Karl’s communicator chirped open on its own — no button pressed, no signal received.
Just a faint, rhythmic tapping.
Three taps.
Pause.
Three taps.

The same pattern Franklin’s team was hearing through the impulse manifold.

The voice — whatever it was — waited for him to act.

EvilJen, DDoSFEO

Leah drew closer, her eyes wide as she had followed the latest communication from… whomever or whatever it was.

Karl stopped moving. He’d begun pacing when the screen responded; he’d so hoped that he was having a nervous break, but the look on Leah’s face showed he wasn’t, or at least he was, but that wasn’t his imagination. He groaned in displeasure then flipped his communicator

[O]Karl to Bridge, whatever you are doing my engine really doesn’t like it. It says that you are touching… It, I’m assuming whatever you are working on up there. The computer warns that we do not understand, that it is dangerous. I’m inclined to take it at its word. I suggest that we momentarily halt communication efforts until we understand what is going on and why my engine is trying to warn me… and how[O] He spoke quickly but not rushed.

As he spoke he wrote on the console with his free hand

WHO ARE YOU?
HOW ARE YOU HERE?

He wanted to ask more but wasn’t sure how much it would comprehend or be able to explain. It wasn’t exactly verbose

Master Chief Karl - CE

“It definitely seems to be sentient communication of on a basic level. I’d almost describe the message as desperate,” Hart commented.

~Leah Hart, NP

The questions he typed hung for one still, suspended moment.

Then the reply came.

Not typed.
Not rendered.
But impressed into the display, as if the words were being pressed from beneath the glass:

I AM NOT NEW.

A soft groan rolled through the bulkheads — the same sound a starship makes when under sudden strain, except none of the load-bearing indicators changed. Nothing was actually bending.
It just sounded like something was shifting through the metal.

The next line appeared, slower, letters trembling like they were fighting their way into existence:

I SLEEP.
YOUR SHIP TOUCHES MY DREAM.

A current of cold air drifted across the back of Karl’s neck without any ventilation shift to cause it.

The lights dimmed again — and this time, they stayed low. Only the consoles illuminated the room, washing everything in that faint, unnatural violet reflected from the nebula outside.

Another sentence carved itself across the display:

YOU CAME TOO CLOSE.
IT HEARD YOU.

A pause.
The screen pulsed once, twice — in that same slow, steady rhythm Karl now recognized from the relays, the manifold, the hull.

And then the final line formed, each letter fading into existence like a whisper pushing through metal:

I AM THE WALL BETWEEN YOU AND IT.

The console stilled.
No more pulses.
No more distortion.
Just that final, impossible message — waiting for what Karl would dare to ask next.

Cpt. Asam, CO

She didn’t want to overstep, but this was a moment where her expertise was potentially useful. “Ask what ‘it’ is and why we should be afraid of it,” Leah suggested. She needed a bit more information to start forming a profile of some kind.

~Leah Hart, NP

Karl blanched at Leah’s suggestion; he could still feel the cold air on the back of his neck, but the more rational part of his mind was still in control and he knew the question needed to be asked “I’m a ship’s engineer not a Diplomat for Cosmic Beings” he complained as he typed “This is officer nonsense”

He wrote his reply as before:

WHAT IS IT?
WHY SHOULD WE FEAR IT?
I HAVE WARNED THEM BUT I NEED MORE IF YOU CAN.

The last was more a plea than anything else.

Master Chief Karl - CE

Leah gave him a reassuring glance but she was also working hard to tamp down her own anxiety. “Right now, whoever, or whatever, is communicating with us seems to have picked you to talk to you. It gives you a rapport whether we like it or not. But I’m here, Karl. I’ll help how I can.”

~Leah Hart, NP

The message came not as crisp text this time, but as trembling, shimmering characters that struggled to stay stable on the screen.

IT DOES NOT HAVE A NAME.
NAMES REQUIRE FORM.

A slow, resonant vibration traveled under the deck plating — softer now, not aggressive, almost mournful. Somewhere deeper in the ship, a coolant pipe gave a muted ping, as if contracting from sudden cold.

Another line pressed into the display:

IT IS OLDER THAN YOUR SUNS.
IT FEEDS WHEN IT WAKES.

The words blurred, then snapped back into clarity.

IT FEEDS ON MOMENTS.
ON ENDINGS.
ON THE LAST BREATHS OF THINGS.

A faint hum began in the starboard wall — rising, wavering, then vanishing like something passing by on the other side of the hull. The violet glow spilling from the diagnostic boards deepened, tinting Karl’s workstation in colors too close to the nebula’s unnatural spectrum.

The next message appeared more slowly, each word arriving as though strained through interference:

YOUR CREW TOUCHES THE HEART OF THE DRIVE.
THEIR PRESENCE STIRS IT.
THEIR CURIOSITY MAKES IT LISTEN.

Then, as though answering Karl’s plea directly, a final message carved itself into the screen with sudden, urgent clarity:

DO NOT LET IT SEE THEM.
DO NOT LET THEM WAKE IT.

The lights flickered once — not failing, but reacting — as the console displayed one last line:

IF IT OPENS ITS EYE, YOU WILL ALL BE REMEMBERED ONLY AS NOISE.

Then everything stilled.
Just the cold air.
Just the faint breath of violet along the walls.
And a screen waiting — no longer pressing for answers, but bracing for Karl’s next question.

Cpt. Asam, CO

Karl shuddered, in extreme discomfort, a dark feeling that made him want to laugh hysterically as well as spit out his breakfast. He pushed his hand through his hair, and could feel that his forehead was soaked in sweat. There was something about this entity that made him, perhaps not believe it completely, but feel the urgency of its words, feel the reality behind it. He closed his eyes for a moment and focused. He did something he really disliked, a Vulcan battlefield meditation. Something the Security Chief on the Celeborn taught him.

He focused all his emotions in his mind’s eye and surrounded them with a reverberating tone, an old hymn. A tune that he kept in his mind to keep his emotions in check. The Vulcan security Chief called it the poor man’s Vulcan Discipline. It was a temporary measure to focus his breathing, regulate his physical fear reactions; it was supposed to be tempered in logic, but Karl was not a logical man, so he tempered it in songs a thousand years old. The primary reason he disliked this state of unnatural calm was how close it was to emotional dissociation, and of course, the recoil once he stopped. But right now he was very close to losing his calm, and he needed to in control of himself.

He stood straighter, wiped his sleeve over his forehead, then started typing again. He wasn’t smiling anymore, pure focus on his face. He was humming slightly, slow sad rythms.

HOW DO WE KEEP FROM WAKING IT?
IS IT AFFECTING US?

No one had replied yet, and he had no idea what was going on on the bridge.

Master Chief Karl - CE

The hum Karl was unconsciously making found an echo.

Not audibly — not at first — but the consoles around him began to resonate in time with it. Displays shimmered faintly, their light waxing and waning to the same slow, mournful rhythm. For the first time since the failures began, the ship did not feel tense. It felt… careful.

The reply came in stages, as if whatever spoke through the system had to brace itself.

YOU MUST BE STILL.

The words held, steady and clear.

IT WAKES TO CHANGE.
TO FORCE.
TO BE SEEN.

A pause. The deck plating cooled beneath Karl’s boots, temperature dropping a fraction of a degree — enough for sensors to notice, not enough to trigger alarms.

Then:

DO NOT PUSH.
DO NOT PROBE.
DO NOT TEACH IT YOU ARE HERE.

The next question answered itself before the text even fully formed. The lights dimmed again, not in warning this time, but in concession.

YES.

The word lingered.

IT BLEEDS INTO YOU AS DREAMS.
AS HUNGER.
AS SOUND YOU CANNOT EXPLAIN.

Karl’s console briefly overlaid biometric telemetry — not tied to any one crewman, but aggregated, shipwide. Spikes in neural activity. Elevated cortisol. Empathic bleed-through. Subspace resonance synchronizing with biological rhythms.

Not possession.
Not control.

ATTUNEMENT.

The final message appeared slowly, carefully, like a hand resting on glass instead of striking it:

YOU ARE SAFE WHILE IT SLEEPS.
I AM HOLDING THE DOOR.

A beat.

BUT I AM NOT ENDLESS.

The hum beneath the ship softened. The violet glow faded a shade closer to normal instrumentation hues. Somewhere far away, deep in the hull, the faint tapping stopped — replaced by silence that felt earned, not empty.

Karl was left alone with a console that no longer demanded answers.

Only vigilance.

Cpt. Asam, CO

Karl raked fingers through his hair, a nervous habit even though he didn’t really feel the nervousness hidden behind the wall of his meditative state. The Bridge hadn’t replied to his last message. He rummaged around in a nearby toolbox and pulled out a PaDD and downloaded the conversation onto it “Nurse, take a look at these biometric readings” He said, his voice was… not exactly cold, but it didn’t contain the usual warmth he put in. He hesitated for a moment, closed his eyes and let go.

Leah peered at the console and drew in a long and steadying breath. “Interesting,” she said. It matched her observations of the crew so far. They were stressed and scared and reacting in different ways. Lashing out even. But not her. She wasn’t sure yet if it was intentional (in that the entity out there wasn’t focused on her), or if it was her condition that somehow countered things in some way, but Leah seemed to not be affected. It was probably a good thing, wasn’t it? Unless that sparked paranoia in the others. She would have to be mindful and very careful.

He staggered against the console, gripping hard as the last few minutes of emotions hit him, he gritted his teeth “I’m fine, just look at these” He pointed to the readings.

Master Chief Karl - CE

OOC: Crossposting

Ra’Ti tapped his comms and said [O] Bridge to Engineering. What’s your status now, Chief? [O]

Ra’Ti, Chief Tactical Officer

Karl groaned and flipped his comm open [O] Karl here, Current status can only be conveyed in ungentlemanly language. The entity in my engine has resumed speaking with me, it conveyed to us the importance of not waking whatever entity is out there. That if it does wake, it will feed on us, according to it we’re being affected. I’m sending biometric readings shared with us: ‘Spikes in neural activity. Elevated cortisol. Empathic bleed-through. Subspace resonance synchronizing with biological rhythms.’” He read the information on the console “According to the entity in my engine, for lack of a better name, it’s warned me that interacting with whatever’s out there is dangerous, I’m inclined to listen to it until we can at least regroup.[O]

Master Chief Karl - CE

“Nurse Hart here as well,” she said into the open comm line. “The sentience that is communicating with us down here comes across as rather desperate. It’s hard to know without further information what’s actually going on here, but I feel strongly as well that we should heed its warning.”

~Leah Hart, NP

Post Holiday Bump for the Boards.

Karl nodded “Heed its warning, that’s an excellent phrase, why didn’t I think of it” He said with a grin, some of his usual spirit returning if only a little.

Master Chief Karl - CE

Bump

Engineering: Master Chief Karl and Leah Hart
Master Chief Karl – Engineering / Ship-System Interaction

Following widespread system failures (impulse engines offline, relay cascades, deflector interference), Karl directly interacted with anomalous behavior manifesting through the ship’s systems.

Nature of Interaction:
Karl attempted to diagnose rapidly cycling error codes on Engineering consoles.
During bypass attempts, system output transitioned from diagnostic data into direct communication.
The entity addressed Karl by name and demonstrated awareness of crew actions and locations.

Communication occurred via:
Engineering consoles
Power grid modulation
Shipwide lighting and vibration changes

Key Information Revealed to Karl:
The communicating presence identified itself as “the wall” or the barrier — not the primary threat.

It described another entity:
Ancient, predatory, and unnamed
Feeds on endings, deaths, and moments of cessation
Awakens through disturbance, forceful interaction, or attention

The Sentinel’s systems were not malfunctioning but anticipating events to prevent greater harm.
Crew proximity to the impulse manifold was actively stirring the greater entity.
The ship and crew were being affected through attunement, not possession.

Warnings Given:
Do not push systems.
Do not probe aggressively.
Do not draw attention.
Prevent the crew from waking what sleeps.

Outcome:
Karl warned the bridge.
He gained partial but critical understanding of the threat.
The anomaly stabilized temporarily after communication.

The entity recognizes Karl as it’s point of contact.
Findings strongly support Chief Karl’s later conclusion that the ship is experiencing attunement, not malfunction.

Leah Hart –

Medical was requested to engineering after Karl received the first message from an entity. Through observation Leah knows:

Physiological / Environmental Effects on Karl:
Sudden cold sensations without environmental cause
Heightened awareness and emotional gravity
Consoles resonating with his unconscious humming (suggesting sympathetic interaction)
No evidence of coercion or loss of agency

Cpt. Asam, CO

OOC: Cross posting from here: https://www.star-fleet.com/core/stf5/sentinel/posts/286705/

Hugh jumped a little when he saw the characters LISTEN come over the module and looked over to were the CE was and said, “Chief, when you have a moment something weird just happened over here.”

MacClure, Engineer

Cpt. Asam, CO