The One-Way Elevator (part 1)

Posted on Thu Dec 17th, 2015 @ 4:14pm by Captain T'mpest Michaels & Commander Rylie Cattmor & Lieutenant Commander Orin ch’Valri & Ensign Belle Maryweather & Chief Petty Officer Jack 'Crow' Addy

1,102 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: A Civil Act
Location: Planetside
Timeline: Immediately following "The Business District"

ON

Except from "The Business District"

The elevator went down a long way, a lot further than was warranted for the size of the building? How far down was the bottom? And why was there nothing to indicate where it was going inside the elevator?

And then something odd happened. There was an electronic hum, all the internal buttons and levers receded and a solid metal plate covered their location, the lights went out and the lift began to descend more rapidly.

At that moment, Belle's tricorder lost the Captain's signal.

NEW

Orin looked around at the group before focusing back on the door. It was a bad idea to let her go down, but Orin thought she would at least have said something before pushing a button for something she had no idea what would happen. With an angry scowl she looked over to Jack and nodded his head.

"Alright, Ladies and Gentle... umm... Ladies. Let me show you a little trick I picked up from a buddy of mine." Jack said in a cocky tone as he removed his knife and pulled out a grenade. Quickly he began to wrap a piece of grey tape to the two objects, attaching the knife to the grenade as he walked over to the elevator. "Now. I would ask you not try this at home. I am a professional Marine and we are trained for this kind of stupidity."

Jack gripped onto the grenade and shoved the knife between the elevator doors. With a devious smile he placed his finger in the pin and removed it, triggering the grenade to softly hum. "Johnny Boy is gonna be sorry he missed this Kaboom boss." Orin shook his head as he quickly walked over to took the pin from Jack's hand. "Hey. That's my souvenir." Jack replied, in a disappointed voice.

"Crow? Do you have any idea how much this is NOT a good idea?" Orin said sternly as softly shoved the pin back into the grenade.

"0 out or 10? About a 3. But 3 is a prime number so I was willing to take the risk." Jack said with a but of a smirk before stopping abruptly and raising a brow. "But you gave me the "Make a Hole" nod you gave, D. I thought you wanted me to... you know... make a hole?"

Orin turned to face Jack. "Before you decided to shove a highly explosive device into an enclosed space with fellow officers nearby, don't you think it would have been worth a shot to hit the button to see if the elevator would come back?" He said in an angry tone as he wrapped his hand around the grenade and yanked it out with minimal force.

"But.... but..." Jack replied softly. "You gave me the face."

With a shaking of the head, Orin moved his hand over to the side panel and pressed the same button as T'mpest did. As he looked over to Jack, he heard the creaking of the old metal as it's gears began to move, calling the elevator back to the ground. As the doors opened, his gaze remained fixed on Jack. "What face am I give you now, Mister Addy?"

"The Jack you pulled a stupid look." Jack replied with a smirk. "You know. Now I see the logic in your plan."

Orin shook his head as he tucked the grenade, and attached knife, into his bag and stepped into the elevator. He heard the slight creak as it took on his weight. After a quick look around he looked over to the others and motioned them to enter. "Come on. Everybody inside. We're going for a ride." As Jack approached the elevator, Orin held up his hand and stopped him from entering. "Not you."

"Huh?" Jack questioned, surprised at the order. "Is this because I tried to blow us all up? Didn't I apologize for that already? You know my memory isn't what it used to be."

"No. Your task is to watch the XO. She isn't with the group. Go find her and stay by her side." Orin said as he placed his hand down and looked to Jack sternly. "Do NOT let her out of your site."

Jack looked at him frustrated. "Awe man. Why do I have to babysit the XO? She's.... she's..."

"She's the XO. Any feelings you have regards to her or her way of doing things is irrelevant. She is part of our responsibility. Watch out for her because its your job, Crow. That's it." Orin said with a sight raise in his tone.

"Can I at least have my grenade back?" Jack said with a smirk. "You know... in case."

Orin gave him a harsh look and touched the button on the side to close the doors.

Jack let out a frustrated sigh and kicked the floor. "Disappointed."

// Office Compartment

After getting the all clear from T'mpest to peruse the office spaces, Cattmor nodded and left the main group to travel the short way down the hall to the office area. From first impressions it seemed like a lot of office areas she'd come across and known in the past, labelled primarily as 'open plan' with a few offices off to the side, no doubt for supervisors and other higher level personnel to perform their work in some modicum or privacy.

As she suspected, all of the equipment was offline, and she had no way of making it online--the power was just non-existent, tested as such by pressing a few controls and buttons, it was all dead. Also as she suspected, there were also files and document cases strewn about the area as well as a long bank of filing drawers along one side of the large room, probably as some sort of backup or extra storage to the electronic means at their disposal. The drawers yielded nothing as they were locked, and she didn't want to force anything at this early juncture; there was still other files and papers laid out on the various desks and units. They didn't say much, not that anything was all that intelligible, just plans and schematics, analyses and forecasts of anything ranging from biodiversity, to air pollution, to waste reclamation and recycling. It didn't make a whole lot of sense.

(To be continued…)

Captain T’mpest Michaels
Commanding Officer

Ensign Belle Maryweather
Science Officer

Lieutenant Commander Orin ch’Valri
Chief Security Officer

CPO Jack “Crow” Addy
Medic

Commander Rylie Cattmor
Executive Officer

 

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