The service bay yaws open in red lockdown light. Nahuli skids in with the others as the blast doors grind shut behind them, cutting off the corridor with a final metallic thud.
Ahead, the ship sits gutted on service struts, belly plates off, coupling cables hanging loose. The Mechanic drops to the primary power junction and rips open the access panel, waving Nahuli in.
The Mechanic
Now. If the interlocks finish their handshake, we lose the bay.
Nahuli
I’m on it.
Nahuli dives under the exposed conduit stack, toolbelt flashing, and jams his repair kit into the station lock header. The panel spits static. The ship’s half-lit frame flickers once, then steadies.
The Station Clerk
Security is routing to this spine. You have one window, maybe less.
A distant siren swells closer. Nahuli’s bypass starts to bite, the lockdown code on the coupling screen collapsing into clean green access. The ship is almost live, and Avalon is almost sealed.
✓ Quest Accepted
Power up the ship
“Lock down this part of the bay.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Engineering, rolled +2)
Nahuli seals the junction with a hard burst of code. The lock header clicks over, and the access lights on this side of the bay turn dead red.
The Mechanic slams a maintenance brace across the open panel, turning the whole access stack into a physical dead end.
The Station Clerk
That should hold the spine long enough. If security wants in, they need cutters.
The ship answers with a low power hum. Work lights blink on along the struts, then settle into a steady white.
The Mechanic
Good. Now it is our bay again, for a minute.
Outside, the siren muffles against the sealed doors. Inside, the crackling relay feed stabilizes, and the colder segment of the service spine falls quiet.
A fresh security pulse thumps somewhere beyond the bulkhead, searching for the breach.
Quest Complete
Power up the ship