Dark places and crawl spaces

Posted on Mon Sep 30th, 2019 @ 10:29am by Lieutenant Carter Smith & Lieutenant Commander S'hib

Mission: Mission 3: Masquerade
Location: Deck 29
Timeline: MD2 09h30
1268 words - 2.5 OF Standard Post Measure

~Another slow day~ S’hib thought as he walked around the halls of the ship, It always felt lifeless especially on the decks away from the activity hubs. ~Could be worse I suppose, I could be getting shot at again.~ he continued talking to himself, not noticing the flickering light behind him.

Turning the next corner towards Stellar Cartography S’hib almost whined, jumping slightly as the entire deck fell dark. An audible whirling down as systems lost power.

“S’hib to engineering got a bit of situation on Deck 29...” He said nervously, stood in the dark as he waited for his eyes to adjust.

"Lieutenant Carter here. What's the problem?" Carter looked at his mainboard and saw the issue.

“Whatever it is, bring a flashlight.” S’hib sighed as he fumbled on his belt and turned on the small utility light, the two small streams of light illuminating his surroundings. “Powers out.” He added opening the manual release on an access panel, turning the wall-mounted equipment rack around.

"Didn't the emergency lights come on?" Carter grabbed his repair kit, 2 wrist beacons and had who was available to start a system-wide diagnostic.

"Urgh..." S'hib said looking around at the vast black expanse of the corridor. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure life support is off as well." He replied worryingly, unable to hear the gentle hum of the ships systems and environment control vents. "I'll make sure you can see when you get down here."

It had been years since he'd had to use an emergency maintenance light, during basic survival training at the academy in fact. ~Do I twist it?~ He thought, fiddling with the small tube until it suddenly lit up, a gentle teal glow filling up the corridor as he let it fall from his hand and onto the carpet below. ~One down... Several hundred more to go.~ He thought, picking up a handful more.

Since the turbolift wouldn't operate on that deck, Carter was forced to access deck 29 via a series of trips through the Jefferies Tubes. Finally, after a long climb, he emerged onto deck 29. He flashed his beacon up and down the corridor. "Ensign S'nib?"

“Lieutenant... I’m over here.” S’hib said walking down the corridor, seeing carters light a few moments ago. “And it’s S’hib, not S’nib, sir...” He added, dropping another glowing light source to the floor.

Carter walked over to him. "Sorry about the name." He pulled his tricorder and started scanning. "You pulled any panels to run a check?"

"A few..." S'hib said with a painful sigh. "Nothing is getting any power, not even the emergency systems are turning on." He continued, looking around the darkened hallways. "We're lucky this is isolated to one deck..."

Carter checked his tricorder, looking for the relays that were supposed to supply the power this deck needed. "All right, ensign. We need to get to junction 45Beta and check those panels...that's the main junction for this deck." He looked around and felt so closed in because of the darkness. "You sure there was no one else on his deck when the power went out?"

"I did pry the doors open to stellar cartography while setting up some lights around, Haven't had a chance to check cargo bay seven... So far it's just us." S'hib said while turning his head to the side, feeling how uneasy Carter looked. "Are you ok sir?" He added softly.

"Me? I'm fine. Just wanted to make sure everyone got off this deck before the power went off." Carter started walking towards the power junction, stopping at every door, knocking and calling out "anyone in there?" and running his tricorder to make sure there were no life signs. We'll pass the cargo bay, so we'll double-check there as well."

“What do you think caused this?” S’hib asked inquisitively, his basic understanding of ship functions coming up with nothing useful.

Carter shined the light ahead of him, pausing at doors and knocking. "A faulty relay could cause failure. Also could be sabotage. Won't know the answer until I find the cause." They continued walking.

“Pretty big fault to kill an entire deck...” S’hib thought out loud. “I doubt It’s sabotage, however, no critical systems or VIPs on this deck.” He added, shining his small torch down a corridor as they passed by. The glint of dust in the air catching beams of light, giving the deck a surreal emptiness.

They arrived at junction 45Beta. Carter went over to a panel and pulled off the cover, shone his light inside then pulled out his tricorder. "Hmm."

“I can't tell if that's a good Hmm or not.” S’hib said in jest, looking at the circuitry behind the panel.

"Looks like it's a simple...." Suddenly, the power regulator shorted and started a fire.

“Fire, a simple fire sir.” S’hib said backing away before noticing small glints of light in the corner of his eyes. “Or not...” He added, looking down either end of the corridor so see small flickers of flames creeping out of various access ports.

Looking around, he calculated what he should do. "Go down 3 doors on the right, get inside, it's a maintenance room. There should be extinguishers in there....grab 2 and get back here." Carter started trying to put out the small fire by slapping his hand on the flames...luckily, it was a small fire.

Darting off without a word S’hib reached the far end of the corridor, taking note of the small fires along the way. And for a half-second, he paused, so accustomed to doors opening themselves he forget about the lack of power. “Oh right...” He snorted, reaching for a small wall panel to access the manual release.

Parting only one side of the door before rushing inside, the smell of acrid smoke starting to offend his large equine nostrils. “Why haven't the fire suppression systems turned on!” He shouted loudly, grabbing two of the hand extinguishers and shouldering his way back out of the narrow doorway.

Now back in the corridor, the smell hit him again. The burning electronics and plastics filling the air now joined by a subtle buzz, more felt than heard. “The powers still on!” He coughed, dropping an extinguisher by Carter before moving to the nearest fire.

Carter moved to a different panel and opened it. Inside was the master power cutoff for this deck. With all the fires now breaking out, the smoke from the fire was spreading. Reaching up, he grabbed the handle and found it hot from the flames. He ripped off the sleeves of his tunic and wrapped them around his hands, and grabbed the handle to the cutoff, and yanked it down.

"We need more people down here!" S'hib shouted over the hissing of his extinguisher, the cloud of CO2 smothering the small fire out of existence.

Main power to the deck was shut down. "Main power offline!" He picked up the second extinguisher and putting out the other small fires.
Carter put the extinguisher down. "I'm surprised that no one on the bridge has responded to this." He tapped his badge, but there was no response. "Something is blocking out comm signals."

"That doesn't make any sense..." S'hib said thoughtfully, walking back over towards the Lieutenant. "Maybe the sensors are do~~" He uttered before his body was enveloped in blue light and was transported away right in front of Carter, the fire extinguisher falling to the floor once his form had disappeared.


Ensign S’hib
Security Officer

Lieutenant Junior Grade Carter Smith
Engineering Officer