Star Trek: Starbase 777 - engineering-corridor

An engineering corridor... aside from the usual destruction, there seemed to be a large, heavy clump of wires, protruding from the corridor's wall. A gentle hiss could be heard, probably from some of the inner workings of the ship, coming from that clump. The team could see two paths - the singularity core room ahead, but also... was that a door to the right?

Saren cautiously stepped out - maybe guiding Eshen and Allan out too as a result - but the coast seemed to be clear. "Huh. Did the ship get damaged there?" he jerked his head towards the gash in the corridor's wall, looking like some sort of wound on one's arm. He was a bit hesitant to just up and approach it, waiting for the input from the rest of his team.

Eshen stepped out as well. "Alright, that's... A big gash, like there was some kind of big claw or knife or a very tough Bat'leth went right through it. I don't think Borg can do that, can they? We should have a closer look, but... Stick together." He reluctantly let go of both their hands so he could put a hand on his phaser and be ready to defend himself if necessary. (edited)

The gash seemed to be about ten centimeters deep - perhaps some cutting instrument or setting was used to create it? Looking in, they could see the inner workings of the ship, that perhaps the engineers or ops would be better at understanding - and, perhaps, studying, Warbirds and their inner workings were still largely a mystery to the Starfleet. But it was the large clump of wires that should've brought the most concern to the team, as they crept closer. Because, if you looked at it long enough... there seemed to be a person, just... stuck in there?..

4

...Eshen gestured Saren and Allan to get behind him and then scanned the... body? with the tricorder. Without saying a word.

4

It was a Romulan - his build stocky, face wide and round, half-sitting, half-hanging from the wires; it almost seemed like he fell..? The more concrete observation, though, was that his uniform was different - it belong to the usual Romulan Navy, not the Tal Shiar. And then there was also the Borg implant on the side of his face - dark metal plate curling near his right ear, the tiny green protrusions of it biting into his cheek, piercing the skin, and around them were tiny, thin scars. The man looked like he was just peacefully asleep, save for the slight crease between his thick brows, suggesting discomfort.

7

The Borg implant on a Romulan... Eshen was starting to form a theory about what happened here, but he didn't like it. "Were they trying to assimilate Romulans... into the Tal Shiar?" Borg tactics without the Borg agenda. It was a good idea (in that it was smart, not that it was moral). You don't need to bother brainwashing people when you can plug a chip into their brain that does it for you, with you as the Queen.

Alizati seemd unfazed by the amount of hand holding going on. He understood this was a stressful situation and it was about the small things that provided comfort. He did look away as Saren advised though simply because he would prefer not to see his fellow officers engaging in such intimate acts in front of him. He had stayed mostly silent through this whole journey mostly because he was too busy trying to listen to the ship. It was the little subtleties that he noticed, the humming of various parts, the sound of the bulkheads. Perhaps it was because he was a machine himself, but he could feel the ship as if it were alive. "I am unsure. The Tal Shiar does a great job controlling others with fear, it seems illogical they would turn to Borg technology to do it for them. However... The Tal Shiar has a habit of playing with fire. They did that with the Iconians and started a war," Alizati stated, his eyes scanning the rest of the corridor as if he was anticipating an attack at any minute.

Seeing a fellow Romulan, assimilated and just left here to hang like some grotesque butterfly in a cocoon, left the most unpleasant, tight ball of feelings in his chest. He shook his head: "Should we just... leave him? And go on?.. I am... I am not sure what the best course of action there is here, but... gods. I am so sorry." He then looked at Alizati, nodding along the man's words, then also adding his own thoughts: "They have dabbled in a ridiculous amount of dangerous experiments. Borg technology, Iconian gates... hell, the Hobus explosion might as well be their fuck up. Doing something likes this, comparatively, is an equivalent a science fair project. I'm..." He turned around, looking at the large doors in front of them. "There's the singularity access, it must be. But there's also this other door..."

As for the scan that Eshen had performed - the Borgified Romulan's readings indicated that he was dead. But, it had also informed him that there was some unfamiliar Romulan technology, attached on his person?.. Hm.

He shot Saren a sympathetic glance, but didn't seem that rattled himself. The sight of corpses didn't usually bother him unless there were tons of them or something, and even then he'd seen a bunch of them in that one mission way back so he was kind of desensitised. "Well... We don't really have any safe or respectful way to deal with the body right now, so best to leave it as it is, unless Allan or Alizati wants to take a closer look at that tech. He's oddly preserved for a corpse... Would taking a photograph for proof of what happened here be inappropriate?" And depending on what Saren's answer was, he either did or didn't take out his PADD and snap a quick corpse pic, as well as saving the data of the scans. "I agree. Let's see what's through the singularity door first. We have an idea of what's in there, and maybe we'll find a clue about what's through the other door or something. Sound good, everyone?"

Alizati watched the exchange between Saren and Eshen, his eyes going from the corpse to the doors. It was eerie to be surrounded by death in such a place, but he kept his calm about him. "I believe that would be logical, we can investigate the other door once we can confirm the stability of the core," That was the engineer's biggest concern with all of this. He may not have had any first hand experience with Romulan ships as Alizati, but he did as Dzharok.

Perhaps he would've faired better, were it not for the implications that this person - and perhaps the rest of his crew - were slain by the Tal Shiar in some insane, pointless experiment of theirs. That part hurt. A lot. And hit quite close to home. And who knew, maybe this man was the most horrifying villain of them all - though, his looks and the relatively short statue almost suggested otherwise - but such faith was undeserved. Inhumane. "I think in this situation, it's fine," he replied, shrugging. "Could also help with identifying him later, at some point, and your point is very valid actually. But... you said there's tech on him?.. Anyone wants to check that out before we move on?"

"I can examine it," Alizati volunteered as he approached the man wrapped in wires. The hissing from the bulkhead stung is ears as he stepped closer. Perhaps it wasn't too distracting for others, even Eshen and Saren with their Vulcanoid hearing, but Alizati almost felt the noise running through his body. Some weird machine telepathy? Or was that just the sound of his own insides turning as he pulled out his tricorder to scan the corpse. As much as he was trying not to stare that was exactly what he was doing. It was to assess the situation as an engineer, though, he was not being disrespectful, he thought.

Alizati's scan gave the same answer as did Eshen's - dead body, weird tech. If Alizati chose to look a bit closer, though... he could notice a reflection of some sort of a red light, blinking in and out on the wires that were behind the assimilated Romulan, yet the android couldn't see it's source. Huh. That's a bit weird...

Alizati was unsurprised that his scans were identical to Eshen's. It was pretty certain they were looking at a corpse. Yet something was telling him there was more than that. So Alizati tucked the device back into his pocket and leaned in closer to the man, his deep green eyes shaking ever so slightly as he narrowed his eyes. There was a red light of some sort behind the man. Knowing better than to stick his hands into some wires, Alizati nudged some of the wires with his elbow to see if he could get a better look. He was going to try and avoid touching the dead body, partially for sanitation reasons but also because he knew as an android things like electrical currents or live wires could literally be 'life' or 'death'.

As he moved the wires, it caused them to shift... and the body slumped forward, limp, but the wires in front of him did not allow him to drop, instead leaving hiim hanging at an incline. Now the back oh his neck was visible - and on his nape, just under the buzzcut hairline, was a tiny, round chip, blinking red.

Alizati let out an audible gasp as the body slumped forward. A strange show of emotion and a hint at the paranoia that had been brewing inside of him since the mission started. He wasn't entirely sure if what he was feeling was a product of his own uncertainty with the unknown depths of the warbird or some dormant Dzharok memories. As far as he knew, Dzharok had never been on a warbird so... It was just Alizati being paranoid, right? Anyway, he turned his head to look at the blinking chip on the back of the man's neck, bringing up a hand to touch the same spot on his own neck as he found it to be quite a coincident him and this random corpse had... Similar chip placement. With his other hand he slowly reached out towards the corpse, his fingers hovering dangerously close to the blinking red light.

No reaction...

Alizati took a brief moment to weigh the pros and cons of various actions and after a few seconds, gently grazed his fingers over the light, curious if there was a switch or other mechanism, similar to what he had in the same spot.

There was a click, then a soft hiss, the blinking light stopping it's rhythm... and then turning off. The chip under Alizati's fingers seemed to detach itself from the man's skin, leaving a slight green mark there that normally would soon disappear.

Alizati's eyes widened at the reaction and he withdrew his hand with the chip between his fingers. Odd, but at least he got the chip? His gaze lingered on the green mark until it disappeared and he stepped back from the corpse to look at the chip he now held in his palm.

Saren scanned it, looked at the results, and frowned: "It's... saying that this chip is dead? The fuck?"

[COMMS] "Five of Eight to teams two and three. Do you copy?" (edited)

[COMMS] "Yes, we do, uh... we have found an assimilated body, but he seems to have been a part of this ship's crew, judging by the uniform. Considering the previous bodies were not assimilated and wore Tal Shiar uniforms... I think we have two different parties here. There was also some weird chip on the back of his neck," he shifted slightly. "What about you? Anything in intensive unit?"

[COMMS] "...huh. We found a body as well- uhm, an alive one, actually, I think. Files say she's in a pod with a 'masking chip', so tricorder readings show her as dead, but she's breathing. Two more bodies in the corridor. Death by disruptor fire, it seems. How's everything in security?" (edited)

[COMMS] "This is Jamis, we're also in the Chief of Security's office and have a link for you regarding the body! Her name is Jaeih and is the sister of the Security officer; he claimed in one of his logs he found a way to hide her from assimilation. Must have been at the helm during the attack." Jamis chimed in quickly. The logs also indicate something about the Tal Shiar using the crew as experiments but we're still working on decryption for Intel back on 777. Will update you all further if anything else relevant becomes clear."

[COMMS] "Yeah, that's what the file said her name was. That confirms an attempt at assimilation was made, too... Thanks, you all. Keep in touch. Five out."

This whole situation was... sort of increasingly getting a little more and more .. he wasn't even sure he had a word to describe the way it made him feel. He supposed it didn't quite matter, either, because now they'd removed this.. dead? Chip? From... "What do you mean by saying that it's dead, you mean - you mean just powered off?" Allan asked, looking at the chip Saren had been holding. "I don't think that would be the same thing as they're talking about, but it might be worth scanning the body again to check if it's still dead now the chip's been removed, just in case it is some sort of, uh, 'masking chip'."

There was a loud keen coming from the singularity core's doors - and as the lights turned off, the ship jerked, movement not unlike of a startled animal, ready to run...

7

Alizati stumbled when the ship suddenly jerked and quickly rushed towards one of the bulkheads so he could lean against it to steady himself. He was quite heavier than an organic humanoid so if he fell into someone that would surely not be a good time. "Something is happening, everyone hold on," Alizati advised his team, sensing danger, he did not know what was happening but it was most likely not going to be good.

Saren, survival instincts suddenly going haywire, grabbed anyone who was close enough to him, be it one or two or all of his team, and ducked his head.

4

Ah, okay. Of course it would make sense that instead of just calmly analyzing the chip the ship would instead go crazy somehow. Except it didn't make sense. But then again, what ever did on these away missions? The whole point was to make sense of it because it never did at the start. He gladly entered the group huddle with his team because well, obviously if they were all holding onto each other that would work in case anything happened, right? Right, so he just - held on in a way that would keep them all stable. Wasn't much else to... do, really. Right? Right. Maybe he should also calm his racing mind down a little. But that was, of course, harder.

Without realising it, Alizati had his arms around Saren-- and Allan-- and... Wait were they all embracing? He felt like a mama bird protecting her children or something. Weirdness aside, Alizati's eyes were on the corpse that lay not too far from them, as if expecting it to come back to life.

4

Eshen was initially surprised, tensing up when the ship started acting up like somehow he could fight this problem, before he was grabbed by Saren and Allan and realised that now was time to play the Vulcan. "We need to comm the others." And so he did just that.

The shaking stopped soon enough, leaving only the rumbling of a working engine. The lights went back on - no longer dim. The body was left unmoving.

[Comms] “I think we’ve gone into warp.. shaking’s stopped so maybe we’ve dropped out. Where’s a good point to regroup with you and the team in Medbay?”

[Comms] "Probably the corridors we were in before... We actually weren't done looking around yet, so you folks head there and meet up with the other group and we'll keep in communication."

"We should check the singularity core now," Alizati said as he listened to Eshen sending out comms to the various away teams. He loosened his grip on the group huddle as his eyes drifted to the doors that led to the core room. Their first priority should be to figure out what was going on with the ship. Who knew where they were now.

Saren, somewhat shooketh but being very brave about it, nodded his head. Autopilot time! (edited)

Allan also nodded, but he was still - quite curious about that chip, quite honestly, and the body they were about to leave by itself, so as he too broke away from the huddle he ran a quick scan of the body with his tricorder. Just to, you know, make sure it hadn't come to life or anything with the ship. "Yeah, we should, hopefully it'll ... tell us at least a little about what just happened."

"I have a few theories, but I will avoid... Was the term, jumping the.. Disruptor? Jumping the rorse?" Alizati was attempting to try and use some of the terran slang that Allan and some others had taught him, but he was clearly unsure of the correct context to use it. Anyhow, he gestured for his team to follow him through the big doors to the singularity core room.

1

Eshen followed, feeling slightly useless since they were probably going into a very engineering-y situation, but hopeful that his clear head and emotional support would be enough to help Allan and Alizati.

3

He followed last, closing the little conga line, feeling awfully watched all of a sudden.

He stalked towards the noise like a cat in the brush, his gaze intense and focused only on what might lie ahead. "Keep an eye behind us," he said to Allan, his voice so low it was almost a growl. He had one hand on his phaser and the other holding Allan's, wanting constant reassurance that he was still there, Orpheus escorting Eurydice through these hellish halls. His logic kept him stable, but the instinctual part of him raged 'how dare they take him! He's MINE!'

5

Allan supposed following behind Eshen wasn't so bad - there was the slight anxiety of not being able to fully see ahead of him, but yet - it was also an important role to play, to keep an eye behind them. "Mhm," he responded, with the same positioning mirrored - one hand in Eshen's, which also provided reassurance, one hand on his phaser - as he walked forwards with him, keeping his eyes focused behind them as they walked. Ceiling, walls, floor - he wasn't sure what was here at this point. "I gotcha."

The sound seemed to come from behind the door, adjacent to the corridor they were in...

He gave Allan's hand a squeeze and then approached the #ceo′s-office with intent to enter it...

Yeah sooo he went down the corridor, as we all know, back to #singularity-core-access ...