===== Jeffries tube, deck 2 ===== With all turbolifts connecting the bridge with the rest of the ship off line, Shane & Co had to use the all liked jeffries tube. Every officer and NCO knew the tubes and cursed the very day of their first admitting into starship's design. Sure ... the fleet engineers named that 'Easy access' ... but try to crawl hundreds of meters in a tube one to one meter tall and wide. This time it was a bit more easy. Their way was almost straight ten decks down to main engineering on deck 11. But descending only a single deck below the bridge, they've found already their first problem. Some three meters away from the group consisting of Ens. Dexter, MCpt Harker and Shane was a pannel blown that once harboured an EPS node. Now however, the wall was full of yellow-ish burning plasma. Continuing that was qould be selfmurder, cause human bodies would withstand burning plasme for less then a second before anihilating. Shane was always fascitaned about the plasma phenomenon. Plasma was the 4th state of matter ... like solid, liquid and gas were the first three. For an non-scientist it was hard to understand what exactly the plasma state of matter represented, but once understood ... it was almost a miracle. Plasma was used in the federation for centuries now, but nonethless ... it was still fascinating that humankind mastered even such an exotic state of matter. "Any suggestions are wellcome now" said Shane turning to his two companions. "Leaving this jeffries tube and descend in an another one passing through the second deck?" asked Harker in a matter-of-fact tone. Shane looked sharply at the Black Ops. He knew that he was playing with fire ... all SSF/SSFI field operatives were hard man/woman trained to survive and conquer, but Black Ops were elite even among those. The fact that Harker was still following Shane's orders could mean only one thing ... Harker KNEW something Shane didnt. Shane shivered. "Find me an exit then" he said somewhat annoyed. Harker pointed on a place somewhat backwards where a burned and scratched but most probably a functional exit was to see: "There Commander" he replied in the same tame tone as before. Shane pierced Harker with his stare and said to Dexter who was quiet till now watching the XO's irrational reactions. "Ensign, open the door and have a look how it looks like outside". "Aye, sir" Dexter replied and returned to the exit door. The electronic access panel was obviously burned and non functional and therefore he tried manual override. He pulled the level with all his might and ... it crackled and Dexter fall backward. The exit door opened some ten centimers and then stopped moving. Harker drew closer to the little 'window' into deck two and looked outside. "Damn" he said quietly. "What?" asked Shane impatiently. "It's ... it was the mess hall" Harker reported. He looked at Dexter and said: "Help me a bit here Ensign". He stood at one side of the exit door, Dexter on the other and each of them tried to push his part of the door to himself and thus forcing the door to open wide enough for them to pass. "Arrrrrrg" escaped from Dexter's lips as he tied to use all of his strenght. Slowly ... very slowly the door started to give away and open. Centimeter after centimeter ... after half a minute the door was half open ... just enough for a man to pass through. All three of them crawled out of the jeffries tube. "Damn!" Shane repeated while looking around. The mess hall was hit hard. The whole room was like burned ... like a giant fireball scorched it. Seats burned, the bar half blown away, some pieces of burned dishes scattered around ... "The Chef?" Shane asked. From a distant corner Harker replied: "No sign of him" he didnt say that most probably there would be nothing left of the poor V'Lek even if he was here at the time of the tragedy. Shane sighed ... he just hoped that the rest of the ship wasnt all like this. He shook his head and pointed to the door leading away from the mess hall ... "We have to keep going" he said in a dull tone. ===== End of log ===== Cmdr. Shane Guzman XO USS Chimera