Symbiotic ship

Condition: Power failure

"EEK!" Sarah screamed, dropping to the floor.

"What the, of all the times?" Sarah heard a click and saw a Cleo produce a small flashlight. Sarah reached into her pouch and did the same. "Well, so much for sparring practice."

"Sparring practice?"

"You have to start somewhere, and guns aren't much help when the enemy's in your face." Cleo sighed. "Guess we'll have to put it off. You have any more rounds?" Sarah nodded, glad she had acquired quite a few from security. The ghost hack was proving quite useful. "Good, let's hope you don't need them."

Sarah took out her tablet. A symbol of a cable flashed across the screen. "The wireless is down." Cleo gave her a look. "Without it I can't see what's wrong with the ship, I'm going to have to find the actual hotspot and plug in to see what's wrong with the Sin Eater."

"Accessing memory... this way."

Sarah looked surprised when the information simply dropped into her mind. It was a sensation not dissimilar to hearing a joke and understanding it after a few moments. Sarah shone her flashlight ahead and started walking, quickly breaking into a run. Down one hall, turn a corner, take a left, jump over the loose cable that fell from the ceiling. Sarah found herself standing before a door with symbol of three curved lines radiating from either side of an antenna. She gripped the handle and pulled the door open. Before her, sitting on a small table, was a small metal box with six antenna sticking out. She picked up the little box, looking it over. Next she followed the cord. "Well, it's plugged in," She turned and looked at the box on the wall. She opened it. "Well that explains a lot."

Sarah quickly flipped the breaker switches. There was a humming sound as the lights turned on, and the wireless box powered up. Sarah tapped a small button on the device and a series of lights lit up. "Ok." Sarah said, taking out her tablet. "What's going on?" Sarah started flipping through diagrams. "Hmmm. Looks like a power surge." "Tyrone, you alright?"

"I'm here, what's going on?"

"Black out on deck 14 over here. Anything on your end?"

"Hold on..." Cleo arrived at the wireless room. "Ok, we just lost contact with everything from deck 12 and up along the rear half of the first triad of the ship." Sarah paused to remember the ship was divided into seven sections, three sections each divided in half around the core of the ship and the core itself. "Carlos is going to be ticked if he finds out you're up there."

"I'll see if I can restore connectivity. The breakers here were flipped, it's going to take a while to fix them all." Just then there was a loud CRACK and Sarah was plunged into darkness again. "Power's out again, something must be sending surges through the wires. I'll see if I can fix it."

"I'll let James know. Maybe we can even spoof a work order saying you were sent there."

"Think you can add I was included for security reasons?" Cleo asked.

"Probably. Be safe you two."

Sarah nodded. She checked her tablet, then put it away. "This way."

"So, why are we in the elevator shaft?" Cleo asked. Sarah had just forced open an elevator door and the pair were climbing up the shaft. Sarah had decided to extend her armor, and her flashlight had found a convenient home within her helmet. A transparent, yet quite hard, bit of chitin had grown over the light source.

"For the few moments the wireless was up I was able to download a report from the ship's computer in this section. The breakers are down because there are frequent power spikes coming from over here."