Star Trek: Starbase 777 - ndn-engineering

Allan and the rest of the check-out-the-lights squad went into engineering, and the first thing Allan would look for is whoever seemed in charge, and for whoever seemed to look particularly nervous, if anyone there. After all, surely it was someone here, if anywhere, that was doing the flickering of the lights, right? Right, but they also had to be careful to not be too obvious that they knew what that flickering meant, he supposed.

Vara moved behind Allan, watching the officers aboard the ship. She was expecting something stranger then….just kind of normalcy. (edited)

She was here! Fiddling with some sort of console. Doing engineering things. "Fucking lights flashing... This isn't a fucking rave!"

5

6

Copia stayed close behind Allan and Vara, not so much prioritizing keeping an eye on Vara as much as just staying with the group. At least from what one of the officers in engineering already was saying, this may not have been something they were in control of. Interesting - what is a rave? Copia would have to ask the computer once she got back to 777.

While the man wearing attire that would probably be pretty appropriate for a rave aside from the Starfleet uniform jacket was incredibly tempted to say that he wouldn't mind if it was, in fact, a rave, he didn't. "Doesn't seem to be, no," he said, moving carefully over to the woman, keeping his distance as he peered at the console to see if he could see what was going on there. "I'm, um. Lieutenant Allan Allen, assistant chief of engineering - and, um," he gestured to the other two for them to introduce themselves, if they so wanted to.

“Ensign Vara, intelligence. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.” She said, acting friendly and nonchalant while looking at the officer, as if she was casing a score. Something wasn’t adding up about these people.

Copia would normally stick her hand out for newcomers to shake, but she decided not to and kept her distance. Just in case. "Lieutenant Copia, Mission Specialist, Command Division. It is a privilege to meet you." Yeeeeah, Copia was just as offput as Vara, something wasn't right at all about these people.

Halfway through Copia saying her own name, she threw a spanner halfway across the room as though it'd insulted her mother, interrupting her with the loud clang. "No more introductions! Can you prove yourselves useful in this 'wellness check'?"

4

THAT rubbed Copia the wrong way. Obviously, she was much better at controlling her emotions and keeping them from being noticeable -- unlike a rebellious Vulcan girl she knew...HMMMM... Anyway. Copia certainly saw that as disrespectful, and shut her mouth, simply swallowing the rest of her introduction. While she didn't say anything aloud, and she actually didn't really react to Suvwl, remaining indifferent on the outside, she couldn't help but take that personally.

Vara blinked. “Not the worst thing to be thrown at me by another woman.” She said as she moved over to pick up the spanner, giving it a a quick once over for anything interesting and plopping it down next to the worker. “I believe the LT could be.”

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Allan watched the trajectory of the spanner as it was launched across the room with what he was trying to have be a neutral expression, but it was hard to keep the small bit of amusement off of his face. "Yeah, totally, do you-" he looked down at the console again, "have any traces so far as to what caused it?" He asked, as that would probably determine whether they'd stay here at the consoles or go look further into the systems that actually determined the light display themselves.

Not the worst thing a woman's ever thrown at her? Clearly Vara must have been in a relationship with a Klingon. She wasn't in the mood for romance, though. "Oh, you'd fucking think so, wouldn't you? You'd think if the lights were broken, there'd be damage we could sense and fix! But no. Nooo. All systems functional! And when something's gone wrong but the computer says everything's fine, that's when you know it's completely gone to shit." Was she this angry all the time, or was there something else pissing her off?

6

Copia decided to give Suvwl' a second chance. Maybe she just had a bad day. After all, Copia was all about giving others the benefit of the doubt. And especially as it was no longer a personal matter due to Suvwl' reacting rashly towards Vara as well, Copia felt the personal pressure relieve from herself. "If I may," Copia suggested respectfully. "Perhaps the computer is unable to detect the lighting anomaly due to a sensor malfunction, or something blocking the sensor from accurate readings. Lieutenant Allen, I suggest checking if there is a quantum surge in the positronic chroniton control circuit. Perhaps that may be acting as a blindfold to the sensor array."

"Mmm, yeah, it's..." he frowned, "fuckin' wild, you're right," he agreed, and while he wanted to trust her on there being no damage they could sense and fix - actually, he would, considering that this was a coded message being sent out and not any actual damage. Still, this was a check-over, and so they would... check it over. "Lieutenant Copia may have a point, I mean, hell, a failure of chroniton control could mean some serious shit if not contained properly, but it would quite possibly block the sensors, yeah," he shrugged, "plus, it's the running lights we're talking about, might be worth it to take a look at the code in their display, might be a case of just some dying lights showing up as completely alive still," he looked at the console again. "Do you mind if I...?"

She took a long, deep breath, then sighed. "Go on, show me up, then. In my defense, this working environment? Terrible. Everyone's so fucking weird suddenly."

4

Copia nodded to Allan - huh! Maybe this Engie Squad™️ thing was the right call for her after all! Teamwork at its finest! Hell, Eshen was right - the power of words in action! Then, Copia froze when Suvwl' said that everyone was acting weird. "I beg your pardon?" Copia asked. "You say everyone is weird lately..." Copia stepped to the side to let Allan do his engineering stuff™️ while still giving Suvwl' plenty of space. "Do you mind going into detail on exactly how everyone is weird lately?" Copia cast a glance at Vara. Copia tried to indicate through her glance that Vara should be taking notes of this, even though she wanted to be as discreet about it as possible, as to not upset Suvwl' further.

"Well, not everyone," she said, picking the spanner up again and twirling it in her hands like she was doing those butterfly knife tricks. "Just Captain Tewari at first, then it felt like she started, like, influencing other people to be assholes, and that stuff. I don't know how to explain it, it's just a vibe - oh, and the delay in answering your hail? That wasn't some fucking communications mistake or whatever. They had this whole secret conversation I was excluded from. Me! The chief engineer! I'm as much of a fucking senior staff as any of them!" She obviously had her suspicions, but maaaybe she was also a little hurt about being left out.

4

Vara paused for a moment. “What were you guys doing before the distress signal went out? What was your most recent mission?” She said as she leaned away from the workers. “Actually wait, did you know anything about that distress call?”

"Transporting provisions and other random Starfleet stuff, honestly. Not that interesting. I know you guys got a distress call, but I don't have any idea who sent it or anything like that." She paused for a second, folding her arms. "You guys really need to up your game if you're gonna claim this is a wellness check. You just asked so many questions at once - I feel like I'm being interrogated!"

2

“Please doll, my interrogations take place in much nicer climates.” She said with a wink. “It’s just curiosity to be honest, I’ll back off your tail on that front if it makes you uncomfortable.”

4

Her tail twitched in annoyance, her eyes narrowing. "Don't treat me like I'm stupid while hitting on me or whatever your weird attitude is supposed to mean, Ensign - I know what's going on. You're lucky I'm sympathetic to you guys poking around." Everyone else in the room did also just hear this conversation, though, and with all the weird things happening... Who knew where their allegiances may lie? "Next person to call me an annoying nickname gets a spanner to the head."

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Vara raised her hands, remembering the spanner incident’s speed and force. “Point taken, you are neither stupid nor going to be called nicknames.”

She smiled, showing her toothy maw, both an expression of joy and a threat. "Now that's a sentence I love to hear."

5

Vara gave a light cough and nod. “Yeah okay! Uhm, oh quick question while we work on these lights. When did this all start for you guys? It wasn’t immediate when we saw you, is this a recent thingy?”

A long, long sigh. "Since I've been on this ship, and I've been on it since the beginning. I think you guys should probably go talk to other people, though. I really don't know much more than I've already told you, and the longer you're here, the more suspicious you look. Before that, though -" She looked at Allan. "Any progress?"

"Dude, what the fuck?" Allan had said, being right as hurt with her for a moment as she said she was being excluded from conversations. "That is an absolutely disgusting vibe, not gonna lie, like..." he kept working away at the console, trying to figure out a few things in particular: the reason for the running lights blinking in such a pattern (particularly, he was looking to see if someone was manually flickering them or if they had edited the pattern into the lights' programming), if the reason responsible for causing that running lights issue had actually been blocked by main sensors as Copia had mentioned, and... possibly, where that blockage or edit or manual tinkering, whatever it was, had or was coming from. "That's just like... mm, I dunno, like, you're fucking right, you are the chief engineer, and they just like..." he looked back at the consoles as she asked him about progress. "Yeah, yeah, just considering like, the background stuff like Lieutenant Copia mentioned, and as you absolutely know, there's a ton of shit that can block sensors like that, and, you know. Figured I'd not make you go through through each of those individually, like, especially giving the shit you're going through. I'm happy to do it, though." He said with a smile, and he meant it!

5

There was a reason that the ship’s own CEO hadn’t found anything yet. Nothing had been altered in the usual programming of the lights: it looked as if they should be going on and off as normal. The only other option was that they were being switched on and off manually – and this was reflected in the ship’s MSD if Allan went digging into the very fine details of the engineering system. Zoomed right in on the manual controls it showed that, hidden away underneath engineering in the bowels of the ship, someone was turning the lights on and off again.

Allan clicked his tongue out of habit as he looked at that result, definitely digging into the ship's MSD the moment he'd ruled out the other methods. Yeah.. manual. Someone - or, well, as he'd say, something, was making the lights flash. "Huh. Must be a tripped wire or something. It's rare, but uh, sometimes if someone leaves something a little too precariously placed, it can cause a flicker like that. Kinda like back when they had manual light switches? If you left it like, in this realllly carefully balanced place right in between, it'd flash - anyways! We'll spare you the dirty work of going through the tubes and spooky decks down there," he laughed, and looked across to Copia and Vara, "especially if, God forbid, the lights are flickering down there too as a result."

Vara nodded as she leaned there. “Ain’t the uninhabited decks down there? Do we need breathing equipment if we were to go down there.” She said as she gave a nervous look to her phaser, still clearly uncomfortable to even have the damn thing.

Gregor got there a bit late as he was checking around the other parts of the ship since it was all brand new to him, truly a marvellous ship, and he may or may not have gotten lost on the way but at least he hadn't lost his repair kit and the other equipment he had on him. "I apologize for being so late I was checking around other parts of the ship, nothing so far in Engineering way." He said as he approached the group and looked at what they had discovered. "Lights flickering like this always spooks me a bit." Gregor quietly mumbled to himself. "Well I doubt it's a ghost."

"Alright. Thanks for your help, you." If Allan had said his name, she'd forgot it. "High-five." Then, if Allan offered his hand, she slapped it with the side of the spanner. Ouch. "Good luck finding out what's going on around here and don't look so sus you get busted, yeah?"

1

Allan absolutely offered his hand, and didn't even flinch as he got slapped with the side of the spanner, just laughing instead. "Yeaah, of course! Nothing to get busted over, really, just getting down to the lights problem still-" that was, after all, the complete truth there, "And uh, good luck with the shitty crewmates. You control this thing more than any of them do, keep that in mind." He offered the chief engineer a smile and a wave goodbye as he looked back at everyone and oh! Another engineer! "Nope, not a ghost. We will need to breathe, though, yeah, well-" he looked at Copia, "most of us, probably? Anyways, out to the corridor, everyone," he said, and would lead everyone out the room then to the #ndn-corridors .

Vara nodded as she moved with Allan into the corridors. “Right, let’s see what we can do with that.”

After Gregor had wandered around a bit he had gotten a strange feeling when he walked through what had happened, all of this just seemed a bit strange. Anyways, he switched hands on his repair kit and chuckled. "Aye, not a Ghost ." Gregor nodded and so he walked out of engineering to the corridor, even though he would have loved to see more in Engineering like more of the systems and what this beauty was running.

Copia nodded. "Not a ghost. Thank goodness." [D] Copia had taken note of everything being said, and while Vara was talking to Suvwl', was typing down on her PADD what was being said. She had to ensure it was all being documented... ...and the truth about this situation being fully scribed for being sent back to the Eventide. Copia followed the others into #ndn-corridors. (edited)

Sihul, having already retrieved her exocomp, was now hiding in Engineering out of fear of reprimand-- though panicked when the self destruct alert went off, rushing to shut it down if she could.

5

"Still not good with -" Allan laughed, catching his breath as he stopped at the nearest console in engineering that would have had access to some sorts of commands, "well, lucky for you, I'm like, the computer guy, so.." he started scrolling through the console, looking around for other engineers who may have been able to assist - waving to Sihul as she rushed to shut it down as well. "Hey! Uh, we need to stabilize the warp core, is there any sort of... issues? Quirks with it that I should know before we start trying to stabili-" (edited)

"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?" She threw her spanner with the power of a thousand warp cores! It hit the wall with a massive CLANG. "Yo! Redhead boy! Take this!" She scribbled a bright red circle around a location on some station schematics and threw it at him.

5

Gregor followed right behind Allan, he had his phaser strapped again and this was the time he set his repair kit down onto the floor and opened it, you could see he had clearly packed a few more extra's into the repair kit than what was standard. "We're both in luck.. though not so much if the ship blows up." Gregor said with a serious tone as he then got up to the console Allan was at. "So where exactly should I go.. I'm not familiar with this ship at all."

He had been distracted by the loud clang of a spanner hitting a wall and a shout to take - oh, he was being thrown some schematics. Okay. "Okay, thanks, so- yeah, warp core, um -" he looked at Gregor and gestured at the warp core, "we need to stabilize that shit, bottom line," and so, he took a moment to look at the thing - rather than the Federation standard blue warp core, it was a mix of red and blue, creating... a really pretty purple, honestly - before he opened up a panel near it to see how the levels of antimatter containment were trying to adjust themselves to prepare for destroying itself, essentially.

Gregor mumbled to himself and hit his head with his palm in an of course, he quickly went over to his repair kit and grabbed the necessary tools for the job to make this warp core not go bada boom as he'd very much like to live a bit longer at least to one hundred. "Honestly I like the blue better, it's soothing." And with that said Gregor got to work, this whole situation had gone to shit real quick.

4

In preparation for the self-destruct – an intentional containment failure within the warp core – the antimatter containment field’s levels had started to drop. Magnetic constrictors and power transfer conduits were slowly draining of energy, and if they gave in, then the antimatter containment field would go completely offline.

"Aw, really? I like the bit of red, really. Thought you'd appreciate that, being a fellow redheaded engineer and all," he said with a small smile, also looking over at the Romulan ensign who, also had red hair. Three redheaded engineers in a room, what would they do? Hopefully stabilize a warp core. "Gregor, if you could fix up the magnetic constrictors' energy flow, I'll work on the general power transfer drain," he said, already working on diverting some of the power away and back to said conduits - away from systems like various decks that weren't currently occupied for the moment before he'd go further with it.

"I mean doesn't blue just fit well on us redheads? At least colour wise." Gregor chuckled to attempt to make this whole situation a little bit lighter, if he was going out it'd be with a smile. "Working on it as fast as I can." And as best as he could but fixing the magnetic constrictors energy flow sadly didn't happen within a second but maybe close enough.. maybe.

1

"Mm, it does, but so does purple, you know?" He laughed, yeah, going out with a smile was the best way to do it. "Liiiike, lowkey, whenever I consider going to CYSEC for just the purple uniform alone, liike... I dunno, it's kinda tempting! Plus, one of my boyfriends is absolutely a purple kinda guy, so if I wear purple, it's like, you know..." he trailed off a little as he focused in on getting some more specific power systems offline to divert them back to the antimatter containment field's systems, making sure that the matter-antimatter reaction assembly wasn't also failing. "Do the other plasma conduits look okay over there? Don't forget about those, too."

2

She was already at the other plasma conduits! She was the chief engineer of this ship, after all - of course she'd help.

3

"Yeah purple fits well to but sad that you can't mix red, blue and purple without looking like a clown or rather it's hard to mix it, in my opinion.. Hey just wear purple you'll match, I mean that'd be quite cute." Gregor said with a smile as he continued working on, he felt like he almost had it.. Lord this felt like the longest five minutes in his life and time usually flew right by him. Gregor looked to the plasma conduits and noticed the Chief was there. "Looks like it's already being dealt with.. And ah I remember when I had a boyfriend should have seen that body." Gregor chuckled at that memory, good times. (edited)

"A clown? C'mon now, nahh, you gotta just mix it up well, you know - there's actually holodeck programs specifically for outfit coordination, actually, and, well, yeah, I can wear purple anytime, but for uniform, I kinda just gotta look cute without the purple, you know? And - should have? Past tense?" He said, and he may have been bending down for some reason or other keeping these systems in check. Wearing his little short shorts and boots. Lest we may have forgotten. "Awesomee, yeah, with the plasma conduits good, we just have to.." looking at the panel again now, he noticed the power drain to the warp core itself was still... a little concerning. "Alright, yeah, we're going to - turn off all non-essential systems, yeah? Expect a few lights to go down," he said, making sure Keaatt and anyone else could hear him say that pretty well as he did just that: cutting off all nonessential systems, flipping just a little bit of light onto the bridge to hopefully not have any fighting incidents happen because of the lack of it.

The power was successfully cut from the non-essential systems and rediverted to the warp core's antimatter containment field. The timer on the self-destruct continued to tick down... But instead of going down with it, the stability of the containment field started going up instead.

"Oh there's holodeck programs for that? Gotta try it sometime when we get out of this hot mess. hey I think you look good in that uniform even if it's yellow.. a true Engineer." Gregor chuckled. "Should have, yeah.. he died in the dominion war.. Dark times, it was brutal." Gregor shook his head with a sigh as he remembered his ex was dead but would have been an old man today, he had gotten over that grief.. somewhat but somethings you could never get over or forget from that time. Gregor nodded in response as he kept on slaving- working. "Progress on the warp core is going good here, what about you?" (edited)

"Oh yeah. And - thank you, that's the goal, I mean-" he took a brief glance over at Gregor, "I'm pretty sure, in my opinion, the engineering uniform is made to be specifically sexier than all the other ones. Just, like, my guess, you know? I mean, I've never seen an engineer that wasn't hot, so like.... I dunno, true until proven otherwise." He smiled, watching as the stability of the containment field stalled for a moment and then frowned for a brief moment. "Yeah, I uh.. not the war, but a similar situation. We get through it, though, you kinda gotta, keep the uh..." He smiled again once he saw the stability of the containment field start going up instead. "Good vibes flowing. Speaking of flowing, yeah, stability's going up again, I think - I mean, would be best to monitor that, but it's looking good to me." (edited)

And actually, now would probably have been a good time to let everyone know they wouldn't die, so he did just that, directing it to Sadhbh. [COMMS] "Hii, Commander? Allan here, we've got the warp core stabilized. Should mean that we won't die in two minutes or however we've got left right now."

"No need for thanks." Gregor chuckled as he kept on working, multitasking was luckily something he had learned quite well over the years. "Oh, you got a point there, it's a pretty good guess to.. If you ask me I think it's because we have such a strong magnetic field around us." He made a little finger gun with his free hand then continued working. "Indeed, have to keep the spirits high with good vibes. That's great, even greater if the auto destruct could cancel.. Crazy that it was even activated in the first place." Gregor mumbled the last part to himself.

Engineering was almost deserted due to the shipwide evacuation, save for the few officers who had stayed behind to help save the ship. It was dark here now, save for emergency lighting and the glow of the warp core. The warp core thrummed away happily, now stable and with its antimatter containment at 100%... And to the aft of this area of engineering, there was a sudden clang and a clatter of something metal hitting the ground.

5

"Maybe, maybe, although... not quite how it works," Allan had said, and laughed when Gregor returned his "good vibes" phrasing. It was nice to see someone who got the phrase immediately. "Yeah! Maybe we can look into the programming and-" He paused when he heard the sudden clang of metal, and immediately looked to Keaatt, who he assumed may have thrown another spanner. "Hey uhh, was that you, or...?"

"But it could.. if we came up with something along that way." Gregor chuckled he stopped working as soon as he saw and felt the work he had done was enough to keep the ship from exploding so he returned to his repair kit to lay the tools back, now he just had a spanner in hand. "I also-" Gregor suddenly cut himself off as soon as he heard the noise. "That was not me." He said quietly as he got his phaser out.

"What? No, the ship isn't gonna blow up now, I don't need to take my anger out on the walls any more." They'd suffered enough today.

5

[Comms] "Their coming, get ready." Sadhbhs voice was heard before the transmission dropped.

"Oh. Well, if it wasn't-" Allan said in response to Keaatt, but then when Sadhbh's voice came over the comms, he moved back away from the warp core, towards the rest of the group. "Well. Shit." And yeah, he took out his phaser too. The easiest thing to do.

[COMMS] "Tr'Hara to Lieutenant Allen, further to the commanders message be advised that hostiles assailing bridge group have broke from contact and departed, at least two have successfully gotten away from us"

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"That does not sound good." Gregor said quietly as he had a firm grip on his phaser in his left hand and another firm grip on the spanner in his right hand, he did not like this at all so he had his eyes peeled for any signs of the hostiles. This felt like the beginning or rather the end of a horror movie. (edited)

Sihul was still in engineering and heard the message. Her pointed ears twitched and a frown appeared on her face. This was not good. "We need someone to guard the entrance, they're going to be here any minute," came her worried tone, she spoke much softer now, still keeping some strength but things... Were not looking good at all.

00:07

Seeing how the others were working, Sihul decided to move towards the entrance and cover them herself, hand on her phaser and keeping her situatiation awareness. If there was anything they taught at the Republic Academy, it was how to stay alert and alert she was...

And following Sihul, confined to the shadows of engineering was Talos on one side…

4

...And Cronos on the other. The two swiftly moving out of the shadows together as the taller figure grasped hold of Sihul from her right side, as his arm seemed to grow and puff up, the muscles flexing and tearing through his sleeve unnaturally as he forceably held onto her, his now larger grip easily wrapping around her arm.

A hand firmly wrapped around the erei’Erein’s other forearm so she was held from the opposite side too, not going anywhere between the strength of the two officers who were meant to be in charge of this ship - officers who were meant to be ones that she could trust. With the other hand, a phaser became precisely pointed towards Sihul's head. "Scream," she hissed, voice strange and alien, "and I kill you."

5

Sihul was indeed taken off guard by this and her first instinct was to scream, but the hiss of her 'Captain' told her otherwise. Her whole body grew tense and her eyes widened as they shifted left and right, wondering if anyone else was seeing what was happening. She wanted to scream so badly, but there was nothing she could do except stand there and let what ever was going to happen... happen.

Lama, who had helped his friends get to engineering, was focused and looking around the shadows, he had his back turned when the CO and XO appeared and was blissfully unaware-- that is until he felt the emotions from their friendly exocomp engineer. Lama's eyes turned to see their lovely new friend locked between the two other officers. He felt her fear as well as some sort of overwhelming telepathic presence that felt almost suffocating it was so strong. He quickly scurried towards Allan, wanting to warn him on the danger. "Allan...."

"No, and Sihul, they're - from that metal clanging, they might already be..." he looked around, staying close to Gregor and Keaatt as he slowly edged away from the light of the warp core, hoping that might give them some cover? Or divert attention away from the core? Or something? He actually wasn't all that confident in what he was doing for once, and that more than anything perhaps was what scared him about this situation. "...hey, Sihul? How's the entrance going?" He looked as Lama came over to him, instinctively reaching for his friend's arm to pull him over with the rest of them. "Lama, hey, you're - you're okay? I mean, as good as the rest of us, at least?" Because needless to say, they were all fucking scared.

*Gregor wondered what the sudden silence meant, it wasn't a calm silence it was a silence of fear and horror like an Alien movie. He turned to face the new voice that had just entered to happily see another Starfleet officer, Gregor wasn't as scared just creeped out by the silence and the sudden change of atmosphere but luckily he didn't let his emotions get the better of him thanks to his training. "I don't like this silence."

"Sihul is in trouble," Lama moved closer to Allan, looking towards the shadows in Sihul's direction. It was too dark to see, but he was sure he was feeling her emotions. He could pick out anyone in a soup that he knew. "Something's not right, Sihul is in danger, there's.." Lama took a few deep breaths, he felt like he was the one being grabbed. "I feel it, Allan-- she's going to faint, she's terrified, someone is hurting her- some...ones I think," Lama was only half Betazoid, but his empathy was well trained, he just wondered if they would be able to act in time.

And during Lama’s rambling concern, round engineering from the opposite side of the warp core and bathed in its swirling purple glow was the group of three. Sihul was in the middle, Cronos and Talos holding her firm on either side with a gun pointed at her head. “Don’t move,” she stated to the engineers and their little escort, “or she dies.”

5

"Ah, okay, um," Allan followed Lama's gaze, but also couldn't see much anything of the shadows, but... he trusted Lama right now more than anything. Or could he? No, he definitely... he definitely could, right? "She's... okay, so to... what..." he wasn't even sure what to do right now, hoping that the security officer might have some tips. Pointers. Anything. And of course, that was when the others came into sight. Now seemed as good of ever as a moment to take a deep breath, maybe? So he did that. And that was all.

Sihul forced her eyes to stay open as if staying conscious would increase her chances of getting out of this alive. Her legs were beginning to grow sore from being locked this whole time. Was this really how it was all going to end? She was just barely out of the Academy, maybe she should have known. Her eyes looked straight ahead, not at any one person in particular. Praying... She was preparing for her last moments. To her wonderful conspirators back on Mol'Rihan, Annara and Havraha. At least they would have each other, they were strong women after all.

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Lama coughed as if he were actually being choked and his whole body shivered. He hated this feeling, he hated every bit of it. His dark eyes stared at the trio, not sure what to do, what he could do. Just then-- he felt a fourth presence in the soup. "...Someone else is here," He murmered so only Allan could hear, or well, he was only planning on having it within Allan's earshot.

Gregor sighed to himself he had a firm grip on both his phaser and spanner but didn't move a muscle as he didn't want to get the poor fellow Engineer dead, he hated these kinds of situations how was he to respond to these situations? He was just an Engineer and that would sometimes make him feel helpless like this time. "Well.. what are you after?" Gregor said raising an eyebrow, since they probably wouldn't take a hostage for nothing there had to be a reason.

“Well, Starfleet?” The not-captain enquired, watching the engineers as she held Sihul firmly in place. There was a curiosity to her tone now, but beneath it still remained a cold, cold anger. “Aren’t you going to say anything? Ah- I was worried that none of you would start negotiating. I thought you were all trained for this.” Gregor was in the good books for actually doing something, perhaps. If impostors had good books that was. “Restore the power to the way it was. Failure to comply will mean that our dear erei’Erein here dies-“ she gave Sihul a jostle at that and tapped the barrel of the phaser off the side of her head. “-And it’ll be on your hands.”

Sihul gasped when she was shook, but made no sounds when the phaser hit her head. Just... cooperate... don't make movements, don't make sounds. All she wanted to do was scream and cry, but this was no time to do that. She had now come to terms with her death, it was worth it if they saved this ship. She had only known the New Dawn for a short time, but it was near and dear to her heart. She then glanced at Allan, then Lama. She wanted to tell them desperately, 'please, don't worry about me, save this ship, save this crew,'.

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"And if the power goes back to the way it was what's stopping you from attempting to destroy the ship again?" Gregor said with a monotone voice, he did a good job on hiding the frustration and helplessness in this situation. Gregor wasn't planning on turning the power back on as it was before anytime soon at least not with any guarantee and even with that these 'things' were not to be trusted not in the slightest. Gregor didn't know how this would turn out but hopefully in best case scenario the ship would not be destroyed and Sihul staying in the realm of the living.

The extra presence lama felt was none other then Sadhbh! She had got a bit lost in the Jefferies tubes but here was fashionably late to the party! She had managed to manoeuvre herself onto a small gangway around a meter above Cronos head. Without thinking much about it she got into a crouching position and jumped off the gangway, her elbow extended in front of her. In a scene mostly seen in WWE wrestling matches she slammed her elbow right into Cronos' head hopefully with enough force to knock him out or kill him and to give Sihul a moment to escape. Unfortunately for Sadhbh the force of the impact would shatter her arm, ouch.

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And down goes Cronos! It might not have worked had he been at the top of his game, but the infiltrator had taken a couple of hits from the phaserfire on the brig... And the force from Sadhbh jumping down from a height did the rest. There was a good crunch from his head - and quite possibly from Sadhbh's arm - as the two landed in a heap.

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There was a moment of confusion, reeling and staggering from one third of the trio here suddenly being unceremoniously decked. The second infiltrator lost her grasp on Sihul, but straightened up again swiftly and this time aimed the phaser at Sadhbh who was now crumpled on the floor. It wasn't as though the Commander would be much of a threat down there, but it seemed that the anger had kicked in. "You," she snarled, "you insolent pest. All of this would have been fine if you had just left us alone."

Sihul fell forward when she was let go and quickly grabbed her phaser to point it at the 'Captain'. She knew this was hashtag not my Captain, this wasn't Talos, Talos would never--! After this was done, Sihul was planning on treating this kind Commander to a tall glass of Torre'vnau IPA, top quality ale.

With his head still pounding with emotions, Lama did his best to fight through it and barricaded his mind from the bad vibes. If he was right, this 'captain' was a telepath. A full telepath. Lama thought of an idea-- fight bad vibes with bad vibes. With his phaser pointed at Tewari, he was going to send her bad vibes through telepathy, all of the violent thoughts and feelings, all of his anger. He may have only been half Betazoid, but he was also half Vulcanoid so he had all the strength of Vulcanoid emotions on his side. Maybe it would be enough to just throw Tewari off balance for a moment, getting her attention off of the Commander.

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Whoa! An absolutely stunning move from the Commander! And thankfully, Sihul was also released now, and pointing a phaser over at the Captain - and Allan, in turn, did the same. How many phasers could you have pointed at you before you gave up? A few, right? "Not gonna lie, I think you're more of the pest here, yeah?"

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Gregor hadn't expected that but it very much welcomed so he pointed his phaser at the 'Captain' and of course he was still holding that spanner I mean you could always just whack them on the head with it if all the phasers didn't work. "I'd say you're outnumbered, no way out." Hopefully there wasn't a way out since they had quite a few phasers pointed at the 'Captain'.

Lama’s distraction was enough. The infiltrator snarled, turned her sights on him, and immediately sent a flurry of psionic energy back. The only thing was that when she looked away, there were now numerous phasers pointed at her. It may have taken a good few shots with a high-intensity beam to take her down, but even this not-captain knew when to surrender. She looked between the group amassed here, sighed – and then dropped her weapon.

Lama shut his eyes tight, but clung to his phaser. He thought he was prepared for this psionic battle, but it was almost too much for him to handle. He held strong though-- he had the power of god and anime on his side! He was just about to send another blast of bad vibes when he saw the 'Captain' drop her weapon. That's it-- they won! Lama opened his eyes and grinned from pointy ear to pointy ear. Just another day with the boys (gender neutral). "Check.. Mate," He said with a laugh, lowering his weapon and walking towards the now unarmed Captain. Still cautious because hey, you never know, but he was pretty sure they had won here.

Sihul lowered her weapon when her 'Captain' did and took in a big sigh of relief. There were way too many emotions running around in her mind. Just a few seconds ago she was at peace with the very real possibility that this would be her final stand, but now? They were lowering weapons, it seemed everything was coming to an end.

A few moments later Sadhbh rolled over from her crumpled position. Eventually managing to sit up with the help of her good arm. All she could say between pained breaths was. "Ow!"

Lama rushed over to Sadhbh and crouched down beside her. "You good Commander? Hey, that was a cool technique, you'll have to teach me some time," Lama said in response to the Commander's very cool slam.

"I take it you'll be needing some of these?" The Romulan engineer reached into her pocket to hand Lama an AFS comm badge. She had kept spares that she had been fiddling with, but were otherwise in working order. She put one on Tewari and let Lama handle the second.

Sadhbh was clearly in pain but she was doing a better job of keeping a handle on it now that she was more conscious. "I'll live, probably not the last time I'll break a bone." She said with a bit of lilt, her accent tightening and becoming more of a shrill north Dublin dialect betraying the fact that she was in incredible pain despite keeping a brave face.

"Wahlao eh, really kena broken one meh? I gotchu," Lama said in perfectly practice Singlish that he had only learned from some comedy videos online. He then put the badge on the 'evil' XO and waited for them to get beamed.

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Right before the crew were transported back, Sihul waved goodbye. She was going to have quiet the story to tell her conspirators when she got back to her quarters. "Thank you all, jolan tru."

And whoosh, the baddies were transported and the Eventide peeps were transported too.

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