After Action

Posted on Sun Jun 1st, 2025 @ 4:08pm by Lieutenant Irynya & Captain Björn Kodak & Lieutenant Cassian Maritz & Ensign Noah Balsam

Mission: Seven Souls
Location: Maintenance Junction, Kordra-Lisrit
Timeline: Mission Day 1 at 1903

[Maintenance Junction]
[Port Vent Network]
[Kordra-Lisrit]
[MD 1: 1903 Hours]

The junction stank of rust and sweat.

It was little more than a wedge of crawlspace where three ducts met—a place never meant for rest, let alone rendezvous. The plating beneath was sticky with half-dried coolant, and something dark had smeared across one of the walls, oxidized into a crust that flaked at the edges. The air hung thick and stale, tasting of burnt ozone and something vaguely organic, like mold that had tried to survive in the wrong kind of metal.

A stripped bolt clinked somewhere in the shaft overhead, rolling and then falling silent. A panel sagged on one side, dangling wires twitching slightly with each distant rumble of the ship’s movement. The light, what little there was, came from a narrow slat where a cracked conduit cover let out a pulsing, sickly orange glow—barely enough to see by, but just enough to cast long, twitching shadows.

This was the place they’d agreed on—Noah, Irynya, and Cassian. It had been nearly an hour since they’d split to sabotage and mislead. Now, the junction waited, quiet and filthy, holding its breath.

Maritz, in his hazy yet infinite wisdom with thinking it a great idea, had managed to locate various things he thought would be useful for helping them to get out of this place while on his way back to Noah and Irynya. His clothing bore a few more holes in it where it'd snagged as he'd gone through a rather narrow part, but for the most part he'd sustained no further injury.

Ensign Balsam had learned a great deal in the last hour. He understood two things very clearly now: one, the Kazon had absolutely zero concern for the safety and health of whoever their workers were. Nothing about this ship was safe. Redundancies were minimal and safe countermeasures were nearly non-existent. The only things that seemed to have a modicum of recursive design were- naturally- the weapons. Two- this ship was powerful in the way a muscle car or a Bird of Prey was powerful. It was designed so close to the edge of what was safe, that it exceeded it often. And that made it fragile.

Balsam also noticed something quite useful... whoever maintained this ship was careless. Either deliberately or out of a sense of exhaustion and neglect he wasn't sure. But when he returned to Irynya and Cassian Maritz, he was toting an abandoned tool kit- and bearing a tired but satisfied smile. The soles of his boots were scuffed and discolored but he looked no more injured than he had when they'd separated.

"I've learned a few things," Noah said simply. "The reason they're having a hard time beaming us out? There's unshielded plasma conduits around us. That's why its so hot in here. Also." Noah pointed at a few different kinds of lines. "Their version of an ODN line and node..." He pointed to one, then another, "Micro-plasma relays." And then finally to another, "Coolant lines. Which means I think this." And he pointed at a fourth. "These might be ventilation lines."

Noah started rummaging- or really organizing- the procured toolkit. "Look at these. These aren't Kazon. They look more like those implants' technology." They had a crafted elegance to them, not quite Starfleet but similarly done. "And some of the stuff around here. Guys, I'm-I'm wondering if there's forced labor aboard. If there is, um, maybe we can make them allies."

Irynya had arrived first--a full 5 minutes before Cassian and Noah more out of a fear of getting lost and being unable to find her way back than a lack of continuing opportunities to wreck havoc. Unlike Noah she bore more signs of wear. Angry red burn lines crisscrossed her palms--the evidence of an overheated metal grate that she'd tried to remove in a hasty bid to get clear when she thought she heard voices moving in her direction. It had been a foolish bit of panic in the moment where her fear overrode her better judgment and earned her the injury as well as the sudden cessation of the voices nearby as if they had heard something unexpected. Five long minutes had been spent just shy of that grate, trying to hold still while her hands throbbed, but finally they had moved off and she'd begun to back track, leaving a trail of bent and broken relays and interfaces along her path.

Her hands were gingerly cradled in her lap, palms facing upright--throbbing have doubled now that she had stopped moving and had the mental space to pay attention to it. The throbbing of the burn felt as if it was competing for her attention with the information that Noah was relaying and even her relief at seeing him alive and well and hearing his voice wasn't enough to entirely banish the distraction.

At the mention of allies, though, she glanced to Cassian. "There were voices," she said, a bit of uncertainty in her tone. "I didn't think they sounded Kazon. Or, at least their tone of voice was different from the Kazon I've heard." She frowned, the expression as much a wince of pain as it was a genuine tipping down at the corners of her mouth. "But... if there are others here... it could be worth trying."

"Either way, we shouldn't be trusting any voices we're hearing that don't belong to us three, right?" Cassian questioned as he noticed the red blistering on her hands. It looked rather painful and he grimaced but continued. "I heard a few as well but wasn't in range to see them."

Noah had heard Irynya talking, but part of him hadn't been listening. His attention had been solely on the open-faced hands in her lap: angry and red and blistering from burns. He felt inside him viscerally cringe and blame himself. Cassian and Irynya were not engineers. They didn't know what to avoid and what not to avoid. He reached for his pant leg and after an awkward first tug that didn't rip the material, Noah used a tool he'd been sorting to cut the fabric. He started to wrap them gently around Irynya's hands. "We need to get you to a Doctor... both of you." He looked at Cassian and her. Like Noah, Cassian was fairly wounded. "If the-the Kazon are warriors and they have slaves aboard, surely their version of Sickbay would be... be someplace with them." Noah had cut his pants again while he spoke- he was now at a half-Capri length on one leg- and he began to wrap her other hand. "Sorry... Lieutenant." He'd almost said Iry.

"Listen... I-I'm the most mobile of us. I'm going to find the Sickbay..." He looked between the two people who had the absolute power to override this Ensign. "I'll leave the tools."

Cassian raised an eyebrow the best he could and looked first at the Ensign in front of him and then to the Lieutenant, "Mate, no. There's a higher chance of us finding it if we're together, not split up where there's a higher chance of something going wrong."

There was something about the way that Noah held her hands, wrapping them with a care that made Iry want to pull him into a hug and just sit there with him for a moment, letting the emotions of everything surface and work their way out. But there wasn't time for that. And that wasn't what they had been trained to do. Emotional moments were luxuries and at that moment luxuries were something they couldn't afford. When he apologized, though, her eyes narrowed slightly. She didn't correct him, couldn't muster the energy in the moment, but she tucked it away for later. None of this was his fault. She had been the one who'd thrown caution to the wind instead of taking her time to check the grate. If she'd spent even 5 calm seconds paying attention she could have prevented the injury.

And then he suggested that he go ahead of them and her training kicked back in with a vengeance.

"No." she said. And it was said with the finality of a superior officer. "N... Ensign..." she, too had nearly defaulted to his name and she glanced sidelong at Cassian as she corrected herself. "Too much could happen between now and then. We're injured, sure. But we're all injured." In her lap, her now carefully wrapped hands twitched with the desire to reach up and carefully touch the swelling on one side of Noah's face. "We go together," she said with finality, "but you know the technology best so you take point."

The long expanse of Noah's mouth, crimped at the edges told his superiors that he was properly chastened- but in much disagreement. In that way, he looked a bit like a distressed bird. "OK." He just had to swallow that. "Lets... lets try to use the junction console in here to get some idea of where to go." He scooted into the small cylindrical access space with the columnar access point. Almost like a wilted flower, five display panels ringed the column at an accessible height.

Noah scratched his cheek under his swollen eye. It was throbbing and it was distracting. But what was really eating in to him was the heat. He had sweated through the back, the pits and the chest of his shirt. His hair had gone lank and dark, some of still sticky and matted from his injuries. He touched a few keys. "OK I think I can see where we damaged things... there's a lot of flashing."

Despite herself the announcement that their efforts hadn't been in vain brought a tense smile to Iry's lips. If she was successful in someway she could deal with injured hands. They would find a way to tend to those soon enough. "Any way to tell if they've got repair crews out to fix what we broke?" she asked, wondering if a repair crew might, in fact, be made up of enslaved individuals like Noah was suggesting. She scooted closer to his back, peering over his shoulder as best she could at the panels he was working on. Unlike Noah she was less impacted by the heat, but she felt it nonetheless, close and heavy in the air around them and that gave her pause.

"Did any of us hit on life support or environmental controls? I feel like it's gotten warmer in here," she asked.

Cassian shook his head, "I didn't."

"I did a few." Noah admitted.

Systems damage wasn't the only thing flashing on the console readout. It showed, as well, the allocation of activated and dispatched repair teams. While the computer didn't signify the races of said teams, it did show their ranks and names. A cursory look through the list seemed to indicate the fix-it crews were likely made up of Kazon rather than slaves from other races. Curiously, though, one name was redacted from the list: it simply read "General Technician #1." Why that particular crewmember was listed as such would remain a mystery, however, as the console did not seem to allow pulling up any specific data beyond the initial readout. However, the assignment listings for the teams did include life support, plasma flow regulation, and needed power supply redirects.

"I'll bet that's not a Kazon," Noah pointed to the strange, generic moniker. His finger circled as sweat dripped into his wounded eye. He swiped at it. "OK... I-I think this is Sickbay." He pinched and expanded the screen. There were displays for beds and what Noah assumed was some kind of a chamber for... either surgery, or torture, or maybe just dermal regeneration. Or maybe- he considered maybe- that was the source of these strange implants. "I can see where the teams are being dispatched. One of them is coming pretty close. Which means I-I think we should hit it before they get there."

His brows rose. "It's a life support team. I-I have an idea. Can you two give me your pentetic acid tabs?" He gestured for the inner pocket of their uniform trousers, sort of like an old-fashioned coin slot. They were the tablets to ingest to try and stave off radiation poisoning while in the field.

Noah looked at his team mates.

Cassian dug into the side of his trousers and pulled out the little tablet. Thankfully he'd never had to take one of these and he trusted the Ensign, so there was no hesitation for why he shouldn't, "All yours. What plan is forming inside your mind?"

Though the uncertainty on Irynya's face was unmissable she didn't hesitate, sliding her fingers into the waistband of her pants and pulling forth the aforementioned tablet. She held it out for Noah to take, pinched gently between two fingers for a moment before relinquishing it to his palm. Those were emergency items. She knew it. And she knew that, now, were they to encounter any radiation they'd be without the protection of this particular tool. And, if she was honest, radiation didn't seem all that unlikely given the patchwork state of Subrek's ship. Still, she trusted Noah implicitly and so when Cassian had also handed over his own tablet she simply said, "Tell us what you need us to do."

"If we can d-delay the life support team long enough," Noah began. But his brow flexed. He was so far out of his depth. He could feel his anxiety tightening his chest. "Um..." He didn't think in strategic ways. He was an engineer. Not a soldier. He never wanted to be a soldier. His hands with the packets of pentetic acid throttled some. "Ok if we can get to the same panel as the life support team, we can access it after they do. I'll use these," he shook the tablets again, "And aerate it into the life support systems. If I-I'm right, everybody with a cybernetic enhancement on this ship should see their systems shut down."

Noah hesitated and looked at his hands. "I-I've been thinking about them. These aren't Borg implants. They aren't usually quantum rotation for energy. Bioneural energy doesn't make enough power for cybernetics like these. That takes amplifiers like the Borg bio-neural implants. And-and I saw what look like energy ports. If they can't use quantum rotation or bio-neural energy, you need an outside power source. The-the only kind of power source with enough energy to do that without damaging living tissue is a thorium isotope."

Noah gestured at the tablets, "Pentetic acid absorbs radiation. It's going to-to eat that thorium fuel for dinner. No fuel, and those cybernetics just become implanted weights." He chewed his lip. "I-I don't even know what I need... it's just an idea..."

In less cramped quarters Irynya might have simply nudged Noah with her shoulder, or even squeezed his shoulder. But it was awkward to do either of those things in their current crouched positions and so she opted for the next best thing she could think of. She shot out her hand, resting it on his knee for a moment and squeezing lightly before pulling it back. "It's a good idea," she said, meeting and holding his eyes in hopes of sharing some of the confidence she had in him. "If we're going to aerate those we're going to need a way to distill them. They're in tablets right now and just putting them into life support won't get wide enough dispersal." She looked from Noah to Cassian and back. "Do you think three tablets will be enough? Or do we need more?"

Noah shook his head with an inflection of uncertainty, "I-I doubt it's enough. But we should be able to aerate it and disperse it at the life control station. It's a gamble, but, um, most life support junctions have some kind of aeration dispersal system to send out large amounts of medicines... sterilizing agents, anesthezine gas for repelling boarders, even m-mass emergency inoculations." Noah shook the tablets again, "I bet this Subrek guy uses something like anesthezine to keep down riots... or maybe even something worse like neurazine gas as a terror weapon. We-we probably won't be able to access that without codes. But the hard systems will be in there to use." Noah looked between them. "I'm going to try to target areas with the pentetic acid. Like the Bridge, or the Brig and security stations."

Nodding, she glanced back at the display behind Noah. "Ok. Even targeting areas I think we can give ourselves a boost if we can dissolve the pentetic acid in something to allow for greater dispersal. Materials for that should, surely, be accessible from their Sickbay." She offered them both a grim smile. "Bonus we probably could all use some of what's there anyway." She glanced at Cassian, assessing his body language before continuing. Technically he had been a lieutenant longer, but she couldn't shake this feeling that she just needed to step in and do something. She didn't have Noah's mind for systems and science, but she could make some calls for them. For as helpless as she felt her new pips had to be worth something.

"We need a moment to think through what we're going to do once they're incapacitated too. We have to assume it won't last forever and if Sojourner is going to get to us..." She trailed off, half of the outline of an idea niggling at the back of her mind. "Let's get moving," she finally added, needing a minute to her own thoughts before she explained herself. "Which way to Sickbay?"

He'd been so scattershot. He'd reacted to an opportunity. He was lucky Irynya was here as a superior officer with more of a grounded level of experience of making priorities. As much as it frustrated him before, they were wounded and she was right. Whatever the life support technicians had access to would also access in Sickbay. "OK." He agreed. He slumped and finally showed the fact that his injuries, the heat and his exhaustion were taking their toll. "If-if they're not looking for us... or can't... then... we're dead." He said lowly.

Noah shook his head. "Sickbay is this way," he pointed. "If we move slow and stick to their version of Jefferies', we can pop out here." Noah pointed at the surgical suite. "Or here." A top level vent entry in the middle of the main healing zone. Noah pulled the tool kit toward him. He withdrew three devices. "Flux coupler, plasma torch and a flashlight with a pulse setting. They're not exactly weapons but they're all we have. The flux coupler is just sharp... the plasma torch has a cutting beam good for about three meters." He blinked and picked up the flashlight. "I'll use this to blind anyone who tries to make a move."

"And what if they don't get blinded?" Cassian countered as he picked up the plasma torch and inspected it, it seemed to be in good condition. "At least you could put some force behind it as you threw it at them, right?" He gave a low singular laugh to ease the situation induced tension.

Noah tilted his head with a wince. "Um." His brows popped. "If I could hit the broad side of a space whale, maybe. But I can't."

Despite herself Iry snorted her amusement at Cassian's comment, taking the flux coupler for herself and shimmying to tuck it in her belt. "Ok," she said when it was clear they were all settled. "Cassian, you take point. The torch has the longest range and we might need it if anything is weirdly sealed. Noah in the middle. I'll take the rear." With another in-drawn, steadying, breath she nodded. "Let's go."

=/\= A Mission Post By =/\=

Lieutenant Cassian Maritz
Security Chief

Lieutenant Irynya
Chief Flight Controller

Ensign Noah Balsam
Systems Specialist