Ensign Imril - Nobody's Dead Yet
Chris Taylor
((Outside Water Treatment Plant - Outskirts of the Bantlox Colony, Laoi III ))
Silveira: On your mark.
Morgan: Get set!
He smirked at his own joke.
Imril: On three… One… Two… Three!
Imril and Sil both pushed with all their might. The latch continued to move slowly, little bits of grit falling away from the edges. A low rumble sounded from behind the hatch, accompanied by a stubborn groan of metal.
Silveira: Tell me we are moving…
Morgan: Yes, slowly. It looks like it’s working.
Imril: Sorry. ::grunt!:: I have to keep ::grunt!:: re-planting the pipe to ::grunt!:: keep my end moving.
The going was steady but. oh. so. very. slow. Imril’s palms were cramping up before their latch had turned 135 of the expected 180 degrees. As the last stretch lurched on, Imril caught themself thinking of Lt. Silveira on a first name basis, as they dipped into during the pair's off-duty arcade development sessions. The gulf of rank having been bridged (temporarily) by this mutual act of regulation-approved breaking and entering.
When the hatch finally cracked open, the tactical officer's hands slipped and he lost his balance, coming to land on his shoulder. Loud enough to definitely hurt.
Silveira: Son of a witch…
Imril: Vitor!
Imril let go the pipe and ran over to him. He didn’t appear to need assistance, though. Imril hovered nearby, ready to offer a hand up.
Morgan: You okay, Sil?
Vitor sat down and shook his head, as he moved his arm around, rubbing his shoulder. Imril eyed his mobility carefully, thinking of their first aid lessons.
Silveira: I am OK, did we get it open?
Morgan returned his attention to the hatch, which now had a very visible separation. It wasn’t big enough for any of them to fit through yet, but when Kyle went to lift the hatch, it moved far more easily than it had before.
Morgan: Looks like it. Imril, give me a hand and help me lift this the rest of the way.
Imril: On it.
The Doctor situated himself at one corner of the hatch and waited until Imril was in position. After making eye contact, he made a quick nod, and together they lifted the hatch to an opening large enough for them to slip in.
Morgan: Hey Sil, take that other pipe we got and shove it in here so we can prop it open!
Silveira: Response
Vitor inserted the pipe into the opening and gave it a wiggle, making sure that it was secure. When he was satisfied, Morgan stood up and wiped his dusty hands on the front of his tunic.
Under better circumstances, further strengthening the ‘doorstop’ would have made for a fine field test of the miniaturized hull integrity field emitters which Imril had brought with them. They’d been plugging away at that ongoing project in free moments over the travel time from the Artemis to the Laoi system. Particularly towards the last leg of the journey when people had started trying to avoid each other to keep from sniping.
Morgan: Last one in’s a rotten egg!
Someone was going to have to explain that saying to Imril some day.
Morgan didn’t wait for the others to object and instead slid feet-first into the opening.
Imril: ::rushing forward:: Wait! There could be--
The human dropped safely onto a platform of sorts.
Imril: ::softly:: Traps.
The ensign shrugged at Vitor. With all the rock and stone still surrounding the ship to anchor it in place, it wasn’t surprising that Morgan had landed on stable footing. But stable didn’t always mean safe.
Silveira: Response.
Imril retrieved the pipe, activated a wrist light and slid in after the tactical officer.
((Crashed Jem'Hadar Fighter - Outskirts of the Bantlox Colony, Laoi III ))
The inside of the ship was dark, dingy, and smelled like dirt, death, and decay. And though any occupants were long dead, there was a palpable sense of intrusion in the fetid air. The impression that this husk of a vessel considered the Starfleet officers to be trespassers and wanted them out now. Imril kinda liked it. There was an irrepressible satisfaction to be had in breaking into a place that did not want them inside. An itch to go further. It helped ease the stench which had settled into the walls.
Morgan raised his arm and held it under his nose.
Morgan: ::flatly:: It smells like shit in here.
Imril waved their light around as Morgan spoke. Seeking out any sign of ‘life’ from the vessel. The circular beam stopped at the form of a flattened set of blue-gray armor laying crumpled against an angular bulkhead brace. It was blotted with irregular dark spots at the joints. Dried effluence, the remnants of putrefaction. The lack of a skeleton within these soiled clothes suggested that even the bones of a Jem’Hadar broke down once the Ketricil White stopped flowing.
Silveira: Response
Morgan shrugged it off.
Morgan: Well, now what?
Imril: We need to get our eyes on the system that’s glitching everyone’s gear. We came in near the nacelle, so we’re in the front half of the ship. The ‘skinny’ part in the middle is a bottleneck that isolates the back half from the front. The command center will be just ahead of that divider and up -- er, sideways -- a few decks. Engineering is in the back half. The emitter we need to turn off could be in either.
Morgan/Silveira: response
Imril: Maybe we can get the ship to tell us where the emitter is? If the interference signal really is meant to keep us from hacking into the eyepiece feed, then it might mean one of the eyepieces is active. Maybe it got knocked around, re-activated somehow, by whatever tunneling or demolitions work that exposed the wing.
Morgan/Silveira: response
Imril: Unfortunately, our universal translators will be just as fragged as everything else. But securing the eyepieces is a start-point, at least. Unless either of you have other ideas?
Morgan/Silveira: response
Tag, and TBC!
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Ensign Imril
Engineering Officer
USS Artemis-A
A240110I12