*Here: italics – Voice over. Big, big big Thank-you to my dear maeghin for a lecture on physics and suggestions. Without you, I'd be sooo lost. Luv ya.
---------------------------------
Ghost gave up on checking the ship's systems – there was virtually nothing that could have caused the glitch. He glanced at Niobe; the captain stood behind Sparks, her face cold and focused, her eyes fixed on the black monitors. The operator still worked on the diagnostic software, shaking his head every few seconds, as his results were exactly the same as Ghost's. The latter folded his arms and sat down in the chair.
"The uplink is clean. Or so it seems." He said, after a long while of disturbing silence.
Niobe frowned and shook her head. "Damnit! What the hell could it be?"
Sparks turned around, his hands still resting on the keyboard. He shifted his sight from Niobe to Ghost, and back at the Captain. "I don't know, but I suppose you're dying to find out?"
"You bet!" she barked. "We can't just sit here and wonder. Ghost, I want you on the holographics, go! Sparks, don't take your eyes off that screen and keep me posted!" she commanded. Ghost nodded to her and got up quickly, heading for the cockpit. Niobe glanced around the deck and followed him.
"Niobe, for christ's sake!" Sparks exclaimed, eyeing the woman.
She halted in half-step and turned to him. "Eyes glued to that screen, Sparks, understood? Or you need a manual?"
"What are you gonna do?"
"Find out what's after us and trying to screw up my day." She retorted angrily, and looked up, as if expecting that the proximity alarms would go off any second.
"It's crazy!" Sparks sprang up from the operator's chair. "We're alone, if something happens, no one even knows we're here!"
"Try to get through whatever is blocking us. Amplify the signal as much as you can and locate the nearest ship. Try to send out our coordinates through the emergency channel to anything that shows signs of life and doesn't want to eat us for lunch. We'll run a search around."
Sparks shook his head and slumped back into his chair. Niobe bit her lower lip, ran to the operating station, and grabbed the radio.
"Ghost, anything yet?"
"The sensors are reading something, but I can't tell what it is. Looks like some kind of an electromagnetic screen around this area, but it's a wild guess on my part. The sensors are going crazy. I don't see anything that could be generating it, though. Complete silence."
"Widen the scan range as much as possible and get ready for a ride."
Sparks glared at her. "Where are we going?"
"Hunting-time. Keep me posted."
"Just don't let the hunter turn into prey." He muttered to her as she turned to leave the core.
Niobe ran through the door and jumped down the ladder. She stormed into the cockpit and sat down in the pilot's seat, right next to Ghost.
"Still nothing?"
Ghost shook his head. "No."
"Let's go. Charge the igniter." She said while fastening her seatbelt.
Ghost turned to her with a serious expression written in his face. "Are you sure? We don't know what's out there. I think it's better not to draw attention until things get back to normal."
Niobe's expression hardened. "Ghost…"
"We don't have enough force to fight off anything that might be out there." He continued in calm voice, though he watched the captain with an intense look. "You don't know what we've stepped into."
Niobe glared at him. "We won't find out if we do nothing. We can either stay here and wait for whatever is out there to pounce on us, and in the current position, we have nowhere to run, Or, we can go, and if anything, have a chance to escape if we're on the move."
Ghost looked away. "We risk either way."
Niobe nodded. "Let's go."
Ghost entered the coordinates and loaded the map, studying the structure of the pipelines in their area, and quickly estimated the route and time it would take them to escape. Suddenly, his hand stopped on the keyboard, and he raised his head, looking at Niobe.
"This screen must end somewhere."
She raised an eyebrow. "So?"
"I'm not sure what it is, but it shows all signs of an electromagnetic field. Effectively disrupting our scan readings, too, they read strange. And if I'm right, and we run straight into it, the change in polarity will kill all our systems just like an EMP would. In other words – we're screwed."
"Shit." Niobe picked up the radio. "How are you doing, Sparks?"
"Doing good, except that this thing's still offline."
"Did you manage to locate the Hammer?"
"Nope, Captain. They should be within our range by now, but they ain't nowhere that I can see. For now, we're on our own."
"Keep trying."
"Your wish, Captain, is… umm… wait…"
"What is it?"
The sound of keyboard clicking could be heard, along with a loud sigh on Sparks' end. "Hmm… I think it's back to normal. We're back online." He said with surprise clearly sounding in his voice.
"How does it read?" Niobe asked, and looked at Ghost.
"Nice and clean."
She glanced at the scanners. The readings went back to normal.
"Whatever it was, it's gone. The passage looks clean." he said, and leaned back in his seat, watching Niobe out of the corner of his eye.
Niobe narrowed her eyes. "As if it made me feel any better." She snapped and locked eyes with Ghost. "Let's check down this pipe and enter the main line, maybe the sensors will read better on a more open space. There must be something there. We have enough time before we meet up with the Hammer. Roland won't be too thrilled when he hears these news." she muttered.
Ghost nodded. Niobe glanced at the internal thermals scan system monitor on her left. "Drop down to eight pads. We're detectable in too big a radius."
"A road straight down to hell." Ghost muttered, observing the holographic projector as the ship descended quietly down the sewer.
"Captain, I just received a strange transmission." Sparks' voice came over the radio. Niobe picked the receiver.
"What is it, Sparks?"
"Not sure. Looks like it got cut before even half the message made it."
"Can you decode it?" she asked, frowning.
"Trying, but I doubt it. It's a mess. The good news – I guess – is that it's from the Hammer."
Niobe raised her eyebrows. "And bad news?"
"Came through the emergency channel."
"Damnit."
Ghost and Niobe exchanged quick looks.
"What do you think could have happened?" he asked, not looking at her. Suddenly he felt that familiar rush of adrenaline, which had hardly left him before the war ended. Something was to happen, he could feel it, down to the bone.
Niobe's eyes were fixed on the windshield, her face expressionless. "I don't know, but I've got a feeling it might have had something to do with what we'd run into." With that, she grabbed the radio again. "Sparks, can you pinpoint their last position?"
"Down to 50 meters. If we keep this course, you should have them on the holographics in about.. 7 minutes."
"Got it."
Niobe felt Ghost's eyes on her and turned to him with a quiet sigh. "I hope they're alive."
Ghost took a deep breath and looked away. "They are."
"How do you know?"
"I just know."
"I hope you're right." She said quietly, suddenly remembering the war and the loss of so many of their people. She shrugged off the thought that it might happen again. "Let's get moving, the sooner we find them, the better." She pulled the controls and the ship entered the line 47 wish ease. "When we find out what happened, we'll have to go up to the broadcast level and send a transmission to Zion. I doubt they know what's going on down here, or they would've called us back already."
Ghost nodded, still observing the holographic projector out of the corner of his eye. As they moved on, the sensors picked up the signs of a hovercraft about three hundred meters down the pipeline. The scheme of the ship appeared on the projector.
"Got them." he loaded up the diagnostic and watched carefully as their sensors ran up and down the Hammer, recording the damage. "Looks like they crashed." He said, frowning.
Niobe shrugged. "Any signs of life?" she asked, glancing at the projector while getting ready to set them down.
"Yes."
"Good news, for a change." She muttered, and shut down the engines.
"Hmmm." Ghost muttered to himself and leaned forward, observing the scan results on the monitor.
"What?"
"It looks as if someone blew an EMP here. I'd guess just before they crash landed… We recorded no suspicious activity in this area, though… except for that field, but I doubt they would have used the EMP because of that."
"Do you think they blew their EMP?"
"That's how it looks like, but…" Ghost frowned, turning to Niobe. "I don't see anything they could've used it against. It must have been the same field we've run into. This doesn't look too good."
"Let's go and take a closer look." She picked up the radio. "Sparks, keep an eye on everything, we're going out."
"Roger that, Captain."
They rose from their seats and left the cockpit, picking up the equipment on their way through the catwalk. As they left the ship, the first thing that hit them was freezing cold and a harsh smell of burnt pieces of hardware. Loose bits of metal covered the rough ground, casting odd shadows as their lights brightened up the tunnel. Ghost shrugged off the dark thoughts, as the view in front of him brought up an immediate connection between that, and the Logos' crash in 01. He focused on the search, attempting to free his mind from those thoughts – it was no time to brood over this, he knew it, though he found it unbelievably hard to put it off.
He looked at Niobe; she moved on carefully, studying her surroundings, looking for any signs of movement with her face set, completely focused on the task. Suddenly, the dead silence was broken; they both heard a muffled noise to the right, and looked in that direction.
"Niobe!" Roland breathed, crawling from under the warped piece of metal that used to belong to the Hammer's hull.
"Roland! Thank god you're alive!" Niobe exclaimed, putting down the plasma gun and ran over to the other captain. She saw Roland lower his head and frowned at that so unusual for this man stance, feeling immediately concerned. "What happened? Are you alright?"
Roland shook his head. "Two of my people are down." He said quietly and sighed.
Ghost realized he started feeling slightly nauseous.
"I'm sorry."
It was all Niobe could say, feeling anger as it began welling up in her, and frustration that there was nothing within sight she could let it out on. Nightmares of the war seemed to be returning, though it shouldn't even be possible, now, that peace had been reached… She took a step forth and placed her hand on Roland's shoulder, attempting to comfort him. He raised his head and slowly breathed out, regaining some composure.
"We lost Mauser, and our newest, Key." He shook his head violently. "Goddamnit." He cursed, waving his head and turned around to his ship. Niobe remained in place, staring at some indefinite point ahead of her. For a moment, an ominous silence lay about the tunnel. Niobe glanced at Ghost out of the corner of her eye, then turned back to Roland.
"What happened?"
The Captain of Mjolnir folded his arms without a word. Behind him emerged AK, walking slowly and stood beside his Captain. His arm was bleeding and he looked worn out; still, he stood upright on his own, facing Niobe.
"We were on our way to meet you down at junction 37 when we received a message from someone called Seraph, telling us to contact the Oracle at once."
At the mention of the Oracle, Niobe raised her eyebrows, watching the man carefully. Roland turned around and glared at the operator. He and AK exchanged brief looks. The latter shifted his sight back to Niobe.
"Key jacked in and everything went well. She called us back saying that she had news and some extremely important data that must be transferred to Zion immediately. I directed her to the exit…" AK paused and fixed his eyes on the ground. He clenched his teeth, and slowly shook his head, unable to speak.
"And then something knocked us down. Out of the blue. Without a goddamn warning." Colt's voice could be heard, slightly muffled, from behind the ship. Seconds later, the first mate's silhouette became distinguishable in the darkness when he stepped forth, joining the rest of the crew. He nodded his greeting to Niobe and Ghost. "Our sensors didn't pick up anything on time. All I remember is that I got knocked off my feet, next thing was just…" he paused, and waved his hand towards the ship behind him. "…this."
Ghost cleared his throat. "We received your message… or a part of it."
AK nodded. "We got hit just after I began the transmission. Tell Sparky not to bother with it, the message was about the Oracle."
"We thought you were asking for help." Niobe said, shifting uncomfortably.
"We sure would have had those bastards left us at least a second before they knocked out our systems!" Roland snapped, turning around. "Before we knew the whole ship just creaked as the hull warped and everything went black. Didn't even have enough time to attempt a controlled crash. We just hit the bottom of the sewer." He said heatedly. It seemed that he would use what energy he had left to let the anger out. He opened his mouth to say something more, but then, he ended up just shooting an angry look around and stared into space. After a long pause, he locked eyes with Niobe for what seemed but a fraction of a second. "For a moment I thought someone blew the EMP."
"Close shot." Ghost folded his arms around him and stepped forward, leaving Niobe's side. He walked slowly to the Hammer and carefully studied the warped metal construction. Four pairs of eyes followed him. "Our sensors picked up an unusually high emf* about 2,500 meters from here. I think we were in its radius, but how it happened, I don't know."
AK's eyes opened wide. "Electromagnetic field?"
Ghost nodded. "Yes. It disappeared as quickly as it showed up…" he paused, glancing at Niobe, "otherwise we would probably be in a similar position right now, just a few thousands meters from you."
"Jesus." Roland muttered, looking at his crew members.
"You must have run into it just as it turned on." Ghost continued, "the Hall voltage must have been extraordinary to do this sort of damage. I've never seen anything like this before." He said while running his hand across an oddly twisted piece of metal.
Roland looked up at him. "That figures."
"No sh*t." Niobe muttered under her breath, eyeing Ghost warily.
Roland sighed. "Besides the systems being down, the charge fried our brushes, and the commutator is shot. The rotor is warped, too. We checked as much as we could, but it was hard in this goddamn darkness." He hissed through his clenched teeth. "Just what we needed."
"The repairs will take some time, but I believe we can fix her enough for you to get home." Ghost said quietly, and resumed examining the ship's twisted surface.
AK sat heavily on the ground, wincing in clearly visible pain. "Do you have any idea what could've generated that field?" he asked, pressing his right hand to the wound on his arm. Colt knelt next to him.
Niobe sighed quietly. "No. What's more important at this point is what business did the Oracle have with us." She said, and walked up to Roland. She looked up, her eyes meeting his in a long, cold stare. The other captain swallowed hard, working to hide the emotions triggered suddenly by the deaths of his crew members.
"Key didn't even make it back to the construct. It's a lost case, Niobe. I guess we'll never find out." He said coldly, his voice was trembling slightly, but he held up Niobe's gaze.
The woman's expression hardened. "Bullshit. We're just about to find out."
Ghost, AK and Colt turned to her abruptly. Roland chuckled. "You don't really think you're going in?"
Niobe sent him a cold look, determination written clearly in her features. "No. I know I'm going in. She wouldn't have called if it weren't a crucial matter. There's some serious shit going on down here, and I've got a feeling she can clear things up a bit."
"Bullshit!" Roland snapped, staring straight into her face. "You want to end like my officer? If this thing strikes again, you're fried! You know the procedure, in case of emergency, and if you haven't noticed yet this is an emergency situation, you're not supposed to pull a hero, you're supposed to retreat to Zion as fast as humanely possible!"
Niobe raised her eyebrows. "We might not make it to get the message as much as we might get hit on our way back to Zion." She said matter-of-factly. "We'll go up seventy meters, to the nearest broadcast position, jack in, find out what's going on, and jack out. That's as good a plan as any."
"No, it's not! It's crazy!" Sparks jumped down from the ship and shook his head. He nodded to Roland and tilted his head, eyeing Niobe. "Captain Roland is right – it's too risky to jack in now."
"Don't even think of questioning my decisions while you're under my command, Sparks." she hissed. Then she turned to face the captain of the Hammer once more. "We'll leave you anything you may need to fix your ship. If you need our med bay, make yourself at home," she waved her hand behind her, "just hurry. I want to do this as fast as possible."
"Niobe, for Christ's sake!" Roland stepped in front of her. "It's suicide! It ain't worth it."
"We won't know it until we find out." She shot a cold look at the man, turned around and walked off. Ghost followed her silently. Sparks cast a helpless look at the other crew.
"She's insane." Roland muttered, shaking his head.
"No doubt." Sparks replied, raising his eyebrows. With a sigh, he headed after his crew back to the ship.
Ghost led Colt and AK stockroom on the lower deck, and let them pick whatever they needed from their supplies. There wasn't much there, but there was no other choice but to try and do all they could do with the available parts.
"Even if we fix this and bypass the fried circuits, we're still gonna need a jump." Colt leaned against the wall and looked around.
Ghost glanced at him. "We'll get back to you as soon as we're done. Good luck."
"Good luck to you, too. Hope you're due for some. And hope you know what you're doing."
Ghost nodded and climbed up the ladder, entering the cockpit. He leaned against his seat and watched Niobe with a questioning look. She looked back at him.
"Quick shot. We jack in, get the message, and jack out. Then we'll get back here and see what else we can do to help them."
Ghost fixed his eyes on the console in front of him. Niobe let out a small sigh.
"So. Are you red or blue on this?" she asked, not looking at him. For a short moment, both of them stared ahead, in complete silence. Finally, Ghost moved and slid into his seat. "What's gotta be done, must be done. It's not a choice."
Niobe allowed herself a weak smile. "It's a way of life. Let's go."
Ghost pumped the igniter and the engines started, breaking the silence and the ship's pads lightened up the dark tunnel. Niobe weaved her way through the narrow line, heading for their broadcast position. Soon it came into view, and she set the ship down gracefully. Ghost shut down the engines. Without a word, both of them rose from their seats and went up to the main deck.
"Everything in place?" Niobe asked, and sat in her jumpchair. Without a word, Ghost followed her example.
"Allow me to say that I'm not too thrilled about dying alone here in case you don't make it." Sparks said, while walking up to her. He placed the jack in the plug in the back of her head, and raised an eyebrow. He glanced at Ghost with pure doubt written in his face.
"Thanks for your input. We all gotta die some time." Niobe snapped, relaxing in her seat.
"It's insane!" Sparks retorted, not really hoping he would change their mind – he knew it was impossible.
"Could be. Now, shut up and hit the button."
--------------------------------------
*emf – electromotive force, happens when there is a changing magnetic flux (field) through a stationary path. Which means that there must be a changing magnetic field there. Lovely, eh? ;)
A/N: Someone please remind me to give Ghost a minute or two in the next chapter to get a grasp of all this… LOL… j/k *winks* and a slap or two next time I come across an idea to go so much into tech detail as with this one. Took two days of research, just because I challenged myself to it :P I'm sorry if you needed a dictionary to get the hang of it. I'm a demon of details.
Dark Puck: LOL, no, no Merovingian. But nearly as evil, he he he. Just gotta wait and see ;) And yesss, preciousss, it's tricksy, very tricksssy… *grins evilly* oh and *hugs* I'm sorry about your cat.
Audrey A: That's exactly how I meant it to sound, though I didn't think you would give up on me so soon and take me off of your fave stories list :P *wink* No worries. They're not really going OOC. I mean, perhaps I owe you a little explanation here. Since it's post-war, they're sometimes really getting bored out of their minds. It's just mocking. Niobe's thoughts about leaving Sparks in Zion came from Sparks' doubt about the reason they're there. I mean, if you were the captain, and the situation didn't force it [so they had thought at that point] would you rather have a reluctant friend on the crew, or a new person who believes in the sense of what they're doing? I believe most people would choose the latter ;) Also, it kinda depends on how you see things… since we don't really know what happens after Revolutions. But Sparks has a Very Important Role to play, so no worries. ;)
Nobody's Princess: Thank you :) *bows* As requested, here's the update, hehe.
Fuhrer: Sparky ain't goin' nowhere ;) For further explanation, read my response to Audrey :)
