Posted by Lieutenant Kalika Darz (Chief of Security) in Into Dark Space

Posted by Lieutenant Mike Stone (Chief Engineer) in Into Dark Space

Posted by Ensign Kristiana O’Larria (Engineer) in Into Dark Space
Posted by… suppressed (7) by the Post Ghost! 👻
((This thread didn’t transfer… Long story short, Stone and Kristi are heading into the dark area of the ship to try and help get things back online. We only got as far as agreeing to meet when we moved, so… without further ado.... Meli))

Kristi settled the panel back on the junction she was at and smiled. She knew Stone would want to foray into the Dark Spaces soon enough. The junction she was at was just one of the power leads into that space. As she stood up, she saw him coming around the corner. “Sorry, boss. I was curious if the power to this point was stable. No point in jacking into it if it wasn’t.” She nodded to the toolbox beside her. “I was actually going to come get you, shortly, and see if you wanted to try some of this today.”

Behind her, about ten feet and one intersection away, was the force field and webbing that marked the edge of the Dark Space that was off limits for this deck and section of the ship. Beyond the barriers was an area where power, life support and comms were varied at best, non existent at worst. This section of decking was colder because of the sap of heat beyond where she was standing and she was pretty sure some of that was due to lack of life support somewhere further on. But so far they had managed to keep it confined. Like a creature they couldn’t catch or kill, keeping it at bay seemed the next best thing. Trouble was, it wasn’t good enough for Kristi. She wanted it dead. She was determined to help Mike claim the ship back for the inhabitants and curb, once and for all, the tales of ghosts, AI anomalies and the stories of the ship ‘being alive’. She didn’t believe any of the hype and knew Mike didn’t either.

Her smile was all for him as he drew closer. Seeing the suits, she frowned slightly. “You really think we will need those? If there was no life support, wouldn’t it be sucking oxygen from here as well?” The barrier was unstable because of power fluctuations, the reason for the webbing as well, so had their been a pressure leak, alarms would have sounded more than once in the past. But when she checked, nothing like that had occurred.

Ens Kristi O’Larria
Engineer

Mike nodded in agreement. “Yes, I know the probability we’ll need these are quite low. But the dark side of the ship has it’s quirks that are sometimes compleately unpredictable. In case something does happen, we’ll have a slightly better chance of surviving in EVA’s then without them. Even if there is no breach, the life support is at bare minimum. Could get extremely cold in there.”

He had a hard time saying the next part. Everyone saw him as a fearless engineer. Sometimes he might have seemed cold to his subordinates, but that usualy came with the job of department head.
“Kristi… I’ll be honest… I’m a bit afraid of what can happen there. Too many people got seriously injured and a few even died over there. I’m just trying to be prepaired so nothing bad happens to us as well.”

Lt. Mike Stone, CE

Mike’s concerns were valid enough for Kristi. But as he made his confession of fear, something told her it was aimed more at her than he was saying. Her face softened slightly as she touched him arm to reassure him. “We’ll be ok, Mike. I promise to be careful.” She let go of his arm not realizing she’d used his first name. Except for one other time, in breakfast in private, she’d always called him Stone or Chief.

She took the second suit and began to put it on. The one piece could easily be left without the helmet attached. She had heard all the rumors about the space they were going into. People never coming out, disappearing from ship sensors, odd noises coming from the corridor. But till Mike had mentioned it, she’d thought it rumors. Now she’d take it a bit more serious.

Kristi
Engineer

Mike exhaled a breat he was holding and smiled. He though she’ll complain more about it but he was glad she saw reason in his concern.

“We can leave the helmets off, unless there’s an emergancy. I doubt we’ll experiance a sudden decompression, but it could get very cold without much warning.” He said again, as he put his suit on as well. “They attach to the belt, but if it bothers you have it somewhere you can reach it quickly”

Once he was done he asked. “Now what exacly do we need to do here? What condition are the power relays and circuits? Is it bad or worse then that?”

Lt. Mike Stone, CE

Just a little bump… (Sorry… M)

Kristi finished putting on her suit and settled her helmet behind her right hip on the belt latch. As Mike finished donning his, the young engineer responded. “Well I’ve checked the conduits and panels from the junction box on this deck all the way to here. Everything works great.”

She not her lip a moment and glanced into the darkness. “My suggestion is we simply go to the next panel.” She picked up the plas sheet beside her too box and showed him. “About thirty feet to the next intersection. Then it’s ten more feet to the right on the starboard wall.”

Letting him examine her map, she reached down and grabbed her small set of tools and smiled. “Shall we?”

Ensign Kristi

“We shall.” Mike replied and grabbed his own toolbox and gear he carried with him. As they moved down the hallway however things quickly began to turn to the worse.
The strong white lights were replaced by a dimmer, less stable version. Many lights flickered ocasionally, and some didn’t work at all.
Mike wondered if they only needed replacment, or was there more to it.

“If everything looks stable at the next panel, then just replacing the malfunctioning lights should do the trick. Gravity in enviromental conditions are still good here.”

He grabbed a piece of metal, that probably came from the ceiling plate and hurled it down the hallway. Except for the noice it made, it flew as one would expect.

“So far so good.” He commented. “Let’s take a closer look.”

Lt. Mike Stone, CE

Kristi let it a laugh that broke the nervous silence she’d been in. “Roger that… Gravity… Check.” Moving to set her box down at the panel just to the right at the next intersection, she smiled. “Let’s just assume it’s bad connections from being neglected for so long.”

They were about twenty feet into the restricted zone as she knew down, grabbed her tool and stress removing fasteners. “We can check this panel, then the next. I’m thinking of the one just before it and the one just after it are good, then we can check individual rooms and sub sections.” She glanced up at Stone with a soft expression. “My guess… Something electrical happened, spooked some folks and neglect and fear have just cause the cascade of failures. I’m honestly betting there is nothing won’t this ship that some clean plugs and a good dusting won’t fix. I’m guessing you inherited the panic and got swept up… That’s all.”

Her voice want accusing him of anything. Quite the opposite. She was supporting his decisions letting him know she understood. But also that she’d stay at his side and see things get fixed proper. “Got it!” She smiled in triumph as she turned to set the panel behind her on the floor.

Kristi
Engineering

Mike looked at her and smile. Gosh, is she really this naive? Or is she just being sarcastic? He thought. A full engineering corps wouldn’t restore Viking to it’s former glory even if it worked on the ship 24/7 for a month. You fix one thing and two other somewhere else break. Any sane person would give up already…luckily for USS Viking, he wasn’t, and he continued to do his best to keep the ship floating.

“Pee-jewww....I think we’ll need those EXO suits sooner then I thought.” Mike said and grabbed his nose. The plate kept a horrible decomposing smell perfectly preserved until someone dared opening the pannel. “I guess here’s your answer on what cased this node to fail. That critter seemed to have bitten one of the power lines and died.”

It was hard to identify what exacly was it. It looked like a rabbit or a rat at first glance. Mike didn’t want to throw a second glance at it’s rotting corpse, but it was either him or Kristi.

“I think i have a plastic bag, let me remove it from there.”

Even though he had gloves on, he grabbed one of the large tweezers and scooped the dead body.

Lt. Mike Stone, CE

As the smell of decomp wafted up, Kristi almost rocked back on her heels. “Bless the gods…” she laughed and waved her hand to try and swat away the offensive odor as she laughed. “One of the NEs was telling me that some time ago there had been a … gremlin… that the word? problem. Something about some strange critters who had infected the ship and caused all kinds of damage. Could this be one of those? I had thought it was nonsense.” As he moved to take the small carcass from the duct, she shook her head. She had been told all kinds of stories about the Viking. She hadn’t experienced anything since her original arrival, so at this point was merely counting half the stories as embellished, and the other half as completely fabricated.

She stood up and took a step back to grab some fresh air and give the small space a chance to air out a moment. “Mike… can you be straight with me, please?” She leaned on the wall and looked at him. The look on her face was serious enough that he would know something was wrong. “The stories… the hauntings, computer intelligence… the gremlin things… are they real? I mean, there is no such things as ghosts. Couldn’t it be malfunctions and gases, hallucinations, and simple cascading failures that are causing this stuff?”

While here face was serious, she had absently crossed her arms across her stomach while asking him, as if to protect herself from whatever answer he was about to give. And while her face was calm, there was a hint of something akin to ‘fear’ in her eyes.

Ensign Kristi O’Larria
Engineer

((Whooops… this was Kristi’s post, not Kalika’s… Meli))