Star Trek: Rapture - jeffries-tubes

As the engineers made way in the jefferies tubes, Maya groaned a little bit mentally, but steeled herself to getting inside and climbing through. She was not claustrophobic, but climbing through tight spaces like these was just cramped and uncomfortable. "So... how we all doing so far?"

The tubes were empty, but the silence was... Eerie. There was a soft mechanical pulsing noise that could be heard, but aside from that there was nothing up ahead. No signs of life or movement.

"I wonder how the other guys are doing. They must be having fun at the bridge..." Maya spoke to herself quietly. Although she would've loved to explore the rest of the vessel, but she had a job to do... and also Engineering would possibly be a highlight for her anyway. She stoped for a moment, checking her tricorder for any readings, mainly to see if she was going the right way, but also to scan for anything else suspicious. If nothing came up, she ventured on. (edited)

Nothing came up on scans, nothing at all. No life, no movement. However it felt like there was a slight breeze coming from down the tubes. Like someone opened the window on a windy day.

Maya stayed silent. The breeze felt nice, but it seemed strange to flow up here... maybe air coming from Engineering? Cooling systems must be absolutely crap compared to now. As possibly dangerous and unscientific as it is, to took a small sniff of the air to see if she could get any particular scent. Anything that smelt like a mechanical fluid or exhaust really would comfort her a bit. She still continued on. "...I don't like the silent treatment that much..."

The air smelled like burnt plasma, nothing super unusual especially when getting near engineering. There was a loud knocking noise from behind Maya, it sounded like a large metal object had hit the side of the tube.

"AH! NO! BAD SHIP!" Maya yelled out, lightly kicking the wall with her foot before climbing off in a faster pace. "You're an old ass ship! You must've been rickety and need of a refit and a tune up after like, I dunno, three centuries of abandonment??? That doesn't mean you get to be cranky with me or my friends after we boarded you! Got that?" Maya scolded the ship as if it were one of her younger siblings, she knew that the ship was definitely not alive or sentient with common sense, but talking something to talk to helped her concentrate a bit. "I'm here to help. Now let me Engineer shit in you!"

There was no response as there was nothing in the tubes, just the Tube Team™️ which included Maya. However a light blue orb of light soon appeared in front of Maya only a couple metres ahead of her.

Maya stopped at her tracks looking up into the mysterious blue orb of light blueness that presented itself to her... she was definitely talking to... something??? She got herself a meter or two closer to the orb before she pulled her tricorder out and attempted to scan it. "Comms are practically dead... so it's just us and you... I'm wearing gloves, so I think I could touch you if I wanted to..."

She got the same thing the folks in the corridor got - residual neural energy of Tholian origin.

Having turned down a tunnel that went the complete opposite way they were meant to be going finally found Maya...and some sort of strange looking orb of energy floating harmlessly near her. "What...is that?" He asked incredulously.

Having been following the Lieutenant, he found himself in an alcove with the two engineers, slack jawed at the sight in front of them. He was quick to whip out his tricorder to make sure that the 'thing' was as harmless as it appeared to be. "Are you alright Lieutenant? We got turned around for a bit!"

Just as the two rejoined their groupmate, the orb moved like it was shot out of a cannon, lights flickering momentarily as a horrifying wail eminated through the air around them at the orb dissapeared.

As the orb made its horrible screeching noise, Maya kept her head down and covered her ears. She was the closest to the damned thing and it was deafening. Once it disappeared, Maya let out a sigh of relief to hearing her other teammates "I'm alright... The orb seemed to be made of residual neural Tholian energy... From what I can look up in the tricorders, the Tholians are capable of emitting several forms of radiation they can modulate..." Maya paused for a moment to rest her head and wait for the ringing in her ears to stop because holy fucking shit that thing is loud. "I believe we're not the only ones here..."