Red emergency lights strobe across the docking bay. Metal walls sweat condensation, and heavy boots clang somewhere in the corridor beyond the airlock.
Ség U'llr steps onto the rig. The refugee ship looms ahead, clamped fast, its reactor thrum rising and falling like a strained heartbeat.
At the control pedestal, The Navigator hammers at a panel with two hands while the other pair races through a nest of exposed cables. Sparks spit. A warning siren cuts in and out.
The Navigator
You, engineer, good. Help me bypass the clamps before the bay gets vented. The artifact tripped containment, and the reactor is about to cascade.
He glances toward the corridor, where the bootsteps grow louder. His silhouette is rigid with panic, but his hands never stop moving.
The Navigator
If you can stabilize the reactor, we can launch. If not, we lose the ship, and everyone on it.
A pressure alarm blooms across the bay display. The clamps shudder once, hard enough to rattle the floor. The Navigator looks straight at Ség U'llr, waiting for a choice.
✓ Quest Accepted
Stabilize the reactor
“Can I isolate the reactor core from the docking clamps before the pressure peaks?”
YES (Likely, rolled 29)
Ség U'llr
The power coupling is misaligned, but the secondary shunt is still intact. I can isolate the core if I reroute the flow through the auxiliary line.
The Navigator
The pressure is spiking! If you have a way to stop the cascade, do it now or we are all dead.
“I reroute the flow through the auxiliary line”
SUCCESS (Superb Engineering, rolled +1)
Ség U'llr snaps the auxiliary line into place, and the blue glare on the panel drops from a scream to a steady pulse.
The reactor's violent chatter evens out behind the deck plating. The whole bay stops shivering like a struck drum.
The Navigator
It's holding... we're holding.
The clamps answer with a deep mechanical groan, then release in sequence, one after another, with a hiss of cooling hydraulics.
The Navigator
Detachment confirmed. Launch thrusters, now!
Warning lights continue to strobe, but the bay is no longer chained to the reactor surge. The ship can move, if someone commits it to the burn.
Quest Complete
Stabilize the reactor