Posted by Gamemaster Creeping Dread (Gamemaster) in Upper Computer Core - Europa in Trouble - Main Sim

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Vora Zorell (Scientist) in Upper Computer Core - Europa in Trouble - Main Sim

Posted by Captain Johann Dvorak (CO) in Upper Computer Core - Europa in Trouble - Main Sim
Posted by… suppressed (10) by the Post Ghost! 👻
SNIP
The engineer lifted a large-ish backpack and walked closer to the Captain before holding it out to him. “If you wouldn’t mind sir.”

GM Dread

Vora was ready to go, already equipped with her science kit.

“Sure,” the Captain said, and took the backpack. They set off to the computer core, leaving a trail of the small relays as they walked down the corridors and up the Jeffries tubes.

A few minutes later, they were at the Upper Computer Core. It took a second to pry the doors open, but a minute later they were standing among consoles that tied into large racks full of isolinear chips.

“Alright, so which one are we plugging this into?” he asked as he unslung the power pack. “We’d better be organized about this, since we’ll probably not get that much juice out of this thing.”

– Johann Dvorak, CO

“This one,” Vora said, flashing him a smile as she moved over to one bank and crouched. The beauty of her eidetic memory was that she had in fact memorized the systems. She would rely on the engineer to deal with the retrieval but she could help at least a little. All she wanted was confirmation that the thing that had flashed in her mind from the screen was something they could analyze.

~Vora Zorell, Sciences

“Right,” the Captain said, making the connection between the power pack and the computer bank where Vora indicated.

“I’ll flip the switch when you guys are ready. Just give the word.”

– Johann Dvorak, CO

The engineer nodded her head. She had a portal console connected to the core and was ready to pull whatever data was in there.

GM Dread

She checked the connection one last time and nodded to Johann. “Okay, let’s give it a try,” Vora said, hoping this wouldn’t be a waste of their time. But with an away team on the surface out of communication and an undiagnosed issue affecting the entire ship, any extra information at this point was better than none.

~Vora Zorell, Sciences

The Captain flipped the switch.

– Johann Dvorak, CO

The power flowed through the computer core and the connected terminal. Assuming Vora intended to immediately access the last astrometrics reading like she stated, the relevant information was loaded into the terminal. Just in time too as the backup powerpack was sucked dry in seconds and everything shut back down.

Vora’s eyes were fixed on the screen as the information was transferred. While it was too fast to immediately read, her mind captured things like this anyway which allowed her to review it later to try to make sense of it. Which was a good thing that the power pack became useless. Zorell sighed.

The engineer blinked. “Well that battery should have lasted for at least a couple of hours. Interesting.”

GM Dread

“‘Interesting’ is a word,” the Captain said flippantly. “Did you actually get a chance to read what the terminal said?” he asked Vora.

– Johann Dvorak, CO

It might have appeared that Vora didn’t hear him, as her eyes were fixed on the once again blank screen, Her eyes had narrowed, her lips pressed together. She held up a pale, yellow finger and nodded and went back to her intense gaze. What she was really doing was actively recalling the information so her brain could actually process it.

Still in a crouch, she looked over and up at Johann, her maroon eyes alit. “Well, I have info but not necessarily a solution. That photonic energy burst I picked up earlier that I couldn’t make sense of? It’s surrounding the ship. It’s like we’re encased in a hologram. And like holograms we’re familiar with, if you have a magnetic containment field, you can make them solid, so matter can’t pass through. I can’t be sure, but I think whatever is generating it is using the ship’ power systems to power it. The question is then, where the hell is the source? If we can find it, we can shut it down.”

What was it that engineer said that I thought made no sense? Johann thought. “Something is preventing the power from travelling through the EPS conduits and actually powering things.” Right. Maybe now we know why.

“If we can create a disruption in the field, even briefly, I’m also wondering if we could get a shuttle through it. We need something with sensor abilities outside the field in order to locate it. And then, if needed, we can even use phasers to disable to even destroy the source. But Captain, I’m not convinced these people have this level of technology. This could be that sign of external involvement we were told to look out for.”

~Vora Zorell, Scientist positing hypotheses

“Yes, I would consider that quite likely,” the Captain said. “It’s quite the magic trick. I’m not even sure how we could pull a trick like that off with our own technology. Actually…” Johann seemed to think about this for a second. “We were expected. This external, third party knew we were going to be here and were going to lower our shields. Given that, it would not be that difficult to plan to install whatever devices would be necessary to tap Europa’s own power for this particular holographic snare at the correct moment.”

“It’s definitely possible,” Vora said, frowning slightly. Truth be told, it was a disturbing thought, but hardly unexpected given how often they’ve had someone interfere with the ship.

“Let’s head to the shuttlebay,” he said. “I have an idea on how we can disrupt the field. If it’s brief, we’ll want to get spaceborne fast to exploit the gap. If it’s not, the ship is still going to be helpless for a while.”

Vora nodded, eager to be doing something that seemed useful. Not that her memory wasn’t helpful here, but it only got them so far.

Next he tried using the little miniature comm relays that they had sprinkled all the way up here back from Engineering. =/\= Hello Engineering, can you hear me? =/\=

– Johann Dvorak, CO

Vora repacked the toolkit and got herself ready to go, moving towards the corridor.

~Vora Zorell, Sciences

The engineer left the discharged battery behind as she packed up her own gear. A response came in to the Captain’s call. =/\=Hello, we can hear you.=/\= The signal crackled slightly but was understandable. =/\=What can we do to help?=/\=

GM Dread

Well at least they didn’t have to worry about communications at the moment. It was one less thing they had to juggle as they made their way to the shuttlebay. She had a good feeling about their plan and that it would net them the information they desperately needed.

~Vora Zorell, Sciences