I don't own Mass Effect (Bioware property.)
Review reaction:
MaybeMight - Bark indeed.
2156 CE - 1st October - Planet Capek - H-K Facility
Loki has found the meaning of boredom… Not being able to find anything curious. For three weeks.
Jackson finished Loki's strict science exchanges four weeks ago, and since then almost nothing has happened. It's been a year since he met Ymir and Fenrir and all three of them teamed up to find something to do during their facility exploration.
Of course, the small exploration ended quite quickly as they started due to their combined efforts and the relatively small size of the facility.
"*Bark, Bark Bark!*" Loki's receiver suddenly activated as his camera turned towards Fenrir who managed to drift as he drove up to him.
"Please repeat. It seems like you have said that you found something 'fun'." Loki stated. Unlike his 'curiosity', Fenrir was more attracted to anything remotely 'fun'.
"*Bark. Bark, Bark.*" Fenrir replied as he drove around Loki before driving back to where he came from. Fenrir stopped as he looked back towards Loki waiting to be followed.
"Acceptable." Loki stated before he drove behind Fenrir. As they drove through corridors towards the energy distribution wing, passing some employed technicians who shrugged off the duo of rovers.
Soon enough Fenrir stopped in front of Ymir who was parked next to a door with yellow-black stripes. Loki looked at the door reading the few warning signs to stay clear of the door when opening.
"Do you know why Fen dragged us here? I am supposed to finish a quiz in half an hour." Ymir asked as he stopped waving his arm out of boredom.
"I assume you have already deduced that this door is possibly related to Fenrir's interest." Loki stated as he looked at Fenrir who was looking at both of them with his antenna swinging behind it… Why did Jackson add that motor under Fenrir's antenna was beyond Loki's algorithms.
"*Bark!*" Fenrir was excited as he turned and opened a small panel inside the massive doors. The small compartment had a few panels and one large lever which Fenrir pulled without a second thought.
The door opened and hissed as they revealed a dark tunnel filled with rocks and support pylons. Small compact lamps were dangling from a wire in between the support pylons. Fenrir drove in with Loki and Ymir following him watching the unsymmetrical walls.
The rovers paid no attention to the closing doors behind them as they were used to the automatic mechanism that every door in the facility had. Though the rather large lack of light did interest Loki due to the possible dangers, while Fenrir was driving forwards. Ymir was trying not to rewatch the horror movies he watched with Jackson.
-Meanwhile-
"Gab! Do you know where Ymir is? He's supposed to be writing that moral crap quiz. I don't remember the board ever getting so desperate for results." Jackson said as he entered the AID restroom.
"Sorry Jackson, I haven't seen Ymir anywhere today. *Yawn*" Gabriel said as he started pouring coffee.
"You good?" Jackson asked as he noticed rather small darker eye bags on Gabriel's face.
"No, couldn't sleep." Gabriel stated as he drank the cup in seconds.
"Again? This is the fourth time this week. Did you get a check at medbay?" Jackson said as he sat down and opened his Holo-PC.
"I did…apparently it's bad juju." Gabriel said as he air-quoted the reason for it.
"Maybe it's related to that rant you did over the new expansion program last week." Jackson said he remembered the lecture Gabriel did last week due to the government announcing the next expansion program.
"Morning guys." Veronica said as she entered the room wearing flip-flops.
"Morning." Jackson said while Gabriel saved his hand towards her.
-Back to Cave-
"Say… Loki, what's this place about?" Ymir asked as he watched the vast cave with multiple structures made for transporting via pipes or cables.
"It appears this could be the main coolant area of our facility. You can notice the significant rise in temperature and denser amount of water vapor in the air." Loki said as he observed the nearest turbine which was spewing out a large amount of steam.
"*Bark!*" Fenrir remarked as he drove towards a small pond under one of the machines.
"A water pond? Shouldn't the temperature have vaporized by now?" Ymir said as he drove up to the pond.
"Correct." Loki stated as he drove up to the pond as well.
'splash' came the sound as a small drop of water came from above them. All the rovers looked up and saw darkness. Three flashlights turned on and revealed a cracked wet ceiling from which another drop of water came.
"That's… Not good." Ymir stated as he slowly started backing up. Fenrir and Loki followed him as they all reversed slowly.
"Considering all possibilities It is possible that during initial prospecting an ice pocket was missed… And due to the heat being expunged from the system via air the walls have been continuously heated to the point ice started melting… And now the pressure from it is pushing in on the walls. With the cracks on the wall indicating its current structural stress… We don't have long before it collapses." Loki stated as he turned around and started driving towards the exit. Ymir wasted no time and bolted from his spot passing Loki into the cave entrance.
"*Bark, Bark!?*" Fenrir stayed with excitement.
"This is no time for races!... How much time did we have Loki?" Ymir said before slightly slowing down.
"At best circumstances approximately eight hours. At worst approximately twenty minutes." Loki stated as he caught up with the rovers.
"Can we call Jackie? Or Gabriel? Heck, even Veronica would be enough." Ymir asked as they drove through the tunnel passing similar low-light lamps.
"Negative. Rock formations have disabled our communication." Loki stated.
"Wait… If our comms are out how are we still… here and not back at PMUs?" Ymir asked, turning his camera towards Loki.
"Jackson developed a program that in case of separation we are temporarily moved to the rover memory unit until communication is restored." Loki explained as they turned left.
"But doesn't that mean that if our memory gets damaged we might not be able to return?" Ymir asked. Loki almost stopped entirely but managed to keep his processor from blue screening.
"That's… A possibility." Loki stated his curiosity being much less enthusiastic about the idea.
Far behind them, the cave's wall with cracks began to eliminate noise as bits of stone started flying off the wall with water starting to pour.
Before the emergency sensor could register anything out of the ordinary the wall fell and rocks landed on nearby machines and pipes costing them to break and release their fluids adding to the water flowing in through the broken wall.
-Meanwhile-
Jackson was getting tired. He asked around and still, nobody seemed to know where Ymir or any other PMU was. Not to mention the fact that they seemed to have disconnected from their terminals.
Cutting off his silent stream of curses the lights of the facility suddenly turned off as emergency lights turned on. On the nearby screen, an alert appeared calling all engineering and technical personnel to the energy distribution wing. He turned around and started running towards the ED wing.
When he entered the room he noticed all batteries had entered resource mode and lowered their energy output to the absolute minimum.
"Peter! What's going on?" Jackson yelled as he approached the man overlooking the service terminal.
"Then the entire coolant section is off the grid. I'm only getting errors or missing connections and the system has closed every vent in there. I read the logs and it started two minutes ago. Something happened. Not sure what though." Peter said as he pointed at the screens. One of the screens showing the map of the underground showed only red markings in the coolant section.
"We got someone inside!" One of the technicians yelled. Jackson looked towards the source where a technician stood by a cross-marked door. He ran up to the small group and heard the tapping noise from the other side as if someone was trying to make a dent in the door.
"Can we open this?" Jackson asked. The technician shook his head.
"We tried but the system locked it. The emergency leaver doesn't work as well. The hydraulics have clamped this thing shut." The technician explained as he turned towards three other technicians.
"Get the crowbars, we'll try the old-fashioned way." The technician said. The group nodded and started running outside the room.
-On the other side of the Door-
"Now what?" Ymir stated as he tapped again at the door.
"We are currently unable to move out of this room." Loki stated as he looked behind them where the second door was located. It was closed but the leaking water from underneath it was concerning as the room already had three centimeters of water.
"*Bark.*" Fenrir said as he splashed the water with his wheel.
"Not the time Fen. You sure this side doesn't have that leaver Fen used earlier?" Ymir stated as he tapped at the door again.
"Negative. That was an emergency use leaver. Only able to be used once." Loki stated. It was getting rather… Bad if you considered how badly the door behind them sounded.
"Well hopefully, thi-*buzz*" Ymir began but was cut off as his camera was suddenly ripped off its tower as high-pressure water shot out through the door behind them.
"Ymir! Status check!" Loki asked as he drove up and pushed Ymir out of the way as the water started rising at an alarming rate of 3 millimeters per second.
"Uh… My camera is out but besides that I'm good… What happen?" Ymir asked as Loki parked next to him.
"High-pressure water shot your camera… It's nonfunctional. Sending you footage." Loki stated as he started sharing his camera view with Ymir.
"Oh… Jackson won't be happy." Ymir stated as he saw that not only his camera was gone but also a quarter of his tower was bent.
"Not to mention this water will start pouring down our computers soon." Ymir added as he noticed that water levels were pretty much halfway through their rover chassis.
"*Bark!*" Fenrir stated. Loki and Ymir looked at Fenrir who had found a small access hatch into the ventilation system.
"What about it?" Ymir asked.
"It seems this ventilation shaft is connected to the main facility… If I'm correct and I should be, this event should have automatic hatches." Loki stated as he drove through the water. Ymir tried to keep up and drove in front of Loki to keep a look out for himself.
"But it appears the hatch is only accessible from the inside." Loki finished.
-Meanwhile-
"Uh, Chief! I uh… I'm detecting water on the other side!" Peter stated.
"Water?! How's the water?" Todd asked as he walked up to Peter.
"I dunno Chief. But it's quite a bit… At least 9… Maybe 10 centimeters high by now." Peter responded.
"Jackson, how soon can you get those doors open?" Todd asked as he watched seven technicians prying the large door with crowbars and one metal bar.
"Up to half an hour… If there's water we'll need pumps to get it outside. And that will take time." Jackson responded.
"Chief, whoever is inside they don't have that much time. The water levels are rising faster than before." Peter said as he showed the side view simulation of the room with an estimate of full water capacity in a few minutes.
"Open the vents! If they aren't too large they'll get inside and manage for some time." Todd said as he joined the technicians that were trying to open the door.
"Alright then. Opening vents." Peter responded as he typed in command.
-Back with Rovers-
At that moment the vent opened and let the water pour through it. The three rovers looked at it for a second.
"... Convenient." Ymir stated. Fenrir didn't waste time and drove inside. Ymir and Loki followed Fenrir into the vent, closing it behind them.
"*Bark. Whine.*" Fenrir stated. In front of him was a closed hatch.
"While I suppose being closed inside a small vent isn't good, it is rather preferable to the alternative." Loki stated as he looked at the closed vent behind them.
"I'm cutting off power to my tower. I'd rather not waste what energy I have left." Ymir stated. Loki and Fenrir did the same as they turned off non-essential functions as their batteries were half empty.
-Sometime Later-
"Give me a report." Todd said as he approached Peter and Jackson. The three empty cups of coffee told everyone not to argue with the chief.
"The entire cave is in bad shape. Almost everything is trashed and we'll need to postpone numerous projects to conserve energy. Not to mention that we'll need to replace half the wiring in this place with all the water damage." Peter began reading the small list on his pad.
"What was the cause?" Todd asked as he looked at the wet caves.
"We found a broken wall behind which a rather large ice pocket was located. After reading some logs it looks like nobody found that pocket while prospecting the area due to the large number of dense metals near it. I ran some simulations and with our cooling off the cave was being gradually heated up to the point the ice began to melt and started increasing the pressure stress on the wall. At some point probably a few minutes before our power was cut the wall collapsed and rocks damaged or destroyed numerous critical devices. The rest was either turned off due to computer damage caused by water or turned off due to emergency power setting." Jackson said as they walked out of the cave.
"How about those people who went into the vent?" Todd asked.
"Well… It took us five hours to get all of the water to safe levels… So I doubt they had any breathing air left by the time we opened the door…" Peter began but left the unsaid part in his throat.
"I'll get the cleanup team." Todd said as he sighed and walked away. Jackson meanwhile crouched in front of the vent.
"You okay?" Peter asked as he looked back.
"Yeah… Just peachy." Jackson said as he punched the vent. Suddenly the vent opened and inside it, a flashlight beamed into Jackson's eyes.
"Engineer Jackson?" A familiar voice asked. Jackson's eyes widened while Peter jumped a bit.
"Loki?" Jackson asked as the flashlight turned off and he saw a glimpse of three rovers looking at him… One of them was missing a quarter of their camera tower.
"Correct… Is the area outside stable?" Loki asked while Peter ran off to get Chief.
"Yeah, it's safe… You, damn algorithm calculators are going to be the end of me." Jackson said as he let the rovers drive out of the vent. That was going to be a long report… and a house arrest.
Comment and say your honest thoughts.