MSNPC Minister Casavel Ifra: Totally Tubular
Sarah Terry
((Main Office, Ivory Tower, StarBase 118))
Search parties struck out from the center of the tower in all different directions and cast long shadows in the low light. This was certainly quite the diplomatic first impression - an armed stand-off, a kidnapping, and two missing commanding officers. Explaining this to the rest of the executive cabinet was going to be a very fun time. Of course, to get to explaining it, they’d first have to *resolve* the situation, and that was no small hurdle. He turned back to Commander Ross.
Ifra: We’ll search every inch of this tower. And I don’t know about the captain, but Athemir was never particularly adept at hiding. He much preferred to meet a situation head-on. I’m sure they’ll be found soon. And we can increase those odds if we figure out what’s blocking our communication. There must be a local power conduit we can access?
Ross: Every tower has an Ops center of their own, this one is no exception. Something or someone must have shut down the central power unit. If it was a confused officer and there's no damage done, a simple restart might do the trick.
He hesitated, gazing back at the door Ifra had ripped open. Ifra knew from his research that the Federation no longer used currency, so he wouldn’t be able to repay them for the several doors he’d almost certainly broken, but… maybe a fruit basket?
Ross: There's a lot of blocked doors between us and Ops though. So the... tubes might be the faster way to get there.
Ah, tubes… Not his preferred method of travel, but he’d crawled through the bowels of a good many ships in his time. Of course, he’d been a politician for over a decade now and his knees weren’t what they used to be - not to mention the fact that he was wearing about fifteen kilograms of ceremonial armor.
Ifra: ::with resignation:: And just how much crawling might that entail?
Ross grimaced slightly with a shrug.
Ross: You might wanna lose that cuirass.
((Short Timeskip))
((Maintenance Tubes, Ivory Tower, StarBase 118))
He lost more than just the cuirass. Bracers, pauldrons, greaves, and his very stylish half-cloak were all doffed the moment Commander Ross opened a wall panel and revealed the rungs of a ladder that disappeared into darkness above them. He quietly cursed Sael for insisting they show up in armor to a diplomatic meeting, but dutifully followed the commander as he led their uncomfortable ascent.
Not one to suffer in silence, Ifra groaned and clanked the whole way behind Ross. They were following the thick bands of power conduits which would hopefully take them the shortest possible route to the tower’s operations room, but that didn’t mean the route was the easiest to traverse. Finally, the commander had the good sense to distract them from their misery with a little conversation.
Ross: So... ::he groaned as he pulled himself forward:: In case we have to fix up the communication... How much of an engineer are you?
Ifra immediately laughed, which was probably answer enough in itself.
Ifra: Well, ::heaving himself up another rung:: I know hitting things and then turning them off and on again fixes about half the problems on old ships, but uh, no, no one is clamoring to make me an engineer, I’m afraid.
Ross: Great. I'm Intel, so I know everything and nothing really. We'll just have to figure it out.
Ifra: ::grinning:: Perfect. I’ll bash the controls and you can interrogate them. We’ll have this sorted in no time.
They continued on their painful way.
Ross: Hope you're enjoying your visit so far... I'd tell you it's not the usual business, but truth be told, we get a lot of these situations lately.
Ifra: Heh, sounds like it keeps you on your toes, at least. I’ve spent most of my time lately stuck in boardrooms, so I must admit, this has certainly been… uh, exciting.
He looked up for another handhold and realized that Ross had stopped moving. In the silence beyond their slightly elevated breathing, there was a strange drilling noise coming through one of the walls. The commander turned toward one of the wall panels and tried to undo the lock.
Ross: I think we made it. The ops center should be behind this wall. If you would be so kind...?
Ifra: ::chuckling:: Always nice to feel useful.
He repositioned himself for better leverage, and then wrenched the panel off the wall. The ringing, drilling sound grew even louder as they pulled themselves rather gracelessly through the panel opening and into the room. Both took a moment to straighten themselves out - Ifra pushed back his feathers and ran a quick finger down his quills before trying to pull his tunic back into place. Then they looked at where they had ended up.
It did appear to be a small control room of some kind. There was a wide hexagonal column at the center of the room covered in screens displaying what Ifra presumed to be current data about the status of the Ivory Tower, and a series of flat monitors set in desks skirting the column. As had been the case in the room they’d left, this place appeared to be operating on emergency power as well, and the room itself was abandoned. Whoever had been here must have left in a hurry - one of the chairs in front of a station was knocked over, another was shoved back against the wall, one of the consoles was sparking, and that damn alarm was buzzing incessantly. Ifra shuddered at the sound of it as he stepped closer to the sparking screen. The Federation’s universal translator was extremely impressive in that he could read the text on the screen, but unfortunately, it was only displaying two flashing words at the moment: “SYSTEM OFFLINE”
Ifra: Well. Not exactly the reception we were hoping for.
Ross: ?
Ifra looked a little closer at the damaged console.
Ifra: I assume this must be the communication relay station? Let’s see what we’re working with…
He crouched down to look for the seam in the casing and found it underneath the desk display. It popped off with a little pressure applied to the lip, so he knelt fully to the ground and then got on his back to look up at the underside of the monitor housing. He sighed as he looked up into the mess of wires.
Ifra: I don’t suppose you have a flashlight? Or perhaps humans see better in low light.
Ross: ?
Ifra: Thankfully, it doesn’t take an engineer to recognize blown out circuits. Less fortunately, I think this means we need to reroute power in order to get communications up and running. And given the fact that we’re running on backup power, I assume we’ll have to override the emergency protocols to do so?
Ross: ?
As Ifra sat back up from under the desk, every muscle in his back protested in unison. He pushed himself to his feet as he shook his head with a small grin.
Ifra: Provided, of course, that we all make it through this in one piece, I plan to hold this over Sael’s head for quite awhile. That time he lost his mind and I had to crawl all over an alien space station to rescue him? Believe me, he’s never going to hear the end of it.
Ross: ?
Ameoneian Minister of Extraglobal Affairs
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