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Mid-January, 2008
RCMP/Ministry of Extraordinary Threats Emergency Hangar
Alert, Nunavut, CA

Even in times of the highest tension and most danger, people find ways to keep themselves busy, and neither the Ghostbusters nor the men and women of the world's northern watch bureaus were any great exception. "Ray? Ray! Ray, check it out." Venkman shook his friend's shoulder. "Egon's in a fight with one of the Inquanok guys."

Ray opened an eye and glanced sideways. Several of the Danish contingent and a couple of the Pohjola Project's Sami members were gathered in a semicircle centered on Egon and a broad-faced, dark-eyed man in Danish uniform. "Wow. Spengs is looking kinda..."

"Green," Winston finished for both of them. "That's freaky. What are they fighting about?"

"The worst thing they've ever eaten," said Venkman. "Eske's winning."

Ray and Winston exchanged glances. They both knew Egon's eating habits. "How?" Ray finally asked.

"That's not food," Egon suddenly said, loud enough to be heard over the snickering Greenlanders. "That's biological waste. You can't consider anything with that level of ammonia in it to qualify as edible."

"This from the man who admits to eating casu marzu," said his opponent with the serene smile of a man who knows he's won. "Hákarl is nothing-"

Winston shook his head. Ray gave up on the possibility of a nap and stood up. "Has anyone seen where Captain Korpan went?" he asked, and one of the Finns pointed. "Thank you."

He found the Canadian in the tiny office attached to the hangar, one hand pressing his headset against his ear and the other taking frantic notes. As Ray walked in Korpan lifted his eyes, winced, and held up a piece of paper that read:

Magnetic fields flaring
Deep ones report Russian helicopter near 82.7° N 114.4° W
Radio comms dorppinng like brick

A moment later Korpan scribbled one last line:

Dammit, I can spell. Marines on the way. Tell the others. We're going in.

Ray shuddered, nodded, and went in search of a better door.

[OOC: Assume everyone will be arriving from Milliways within five minutes of each other. Also, don't click on the food links above if you have a weak stomach.]

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"I feel it a little, but I've been through worse." Though not in some time. "Humans are fairly resilient anyway." He lets his eyes get used to the lighting, and studies what has to be something like sonar.

"That's something," says Lua'al-rei. "The only humans we're much familiar with in my moiety are the French ambassador and the English one, and the English one no longer has a body."

Tsybenko exclaims sharply and sits up straight at that. Lua'al-rei slants one eye at him. "Something wrong?"

"The Englishman- does he stammer when he speaks?"

Again, Lua'al-rei dips his chin, then lifts his head. "All the time. It makes him hard to follow, but the trade-off is worth it."

"Bozhe moi. I know that man-"

As the discussion ensues, Kirk can see that the displays are somewhat fuzzier than a typical sonar display; they give the impression of being more of a visual display of an entire region's energy fields than a true sonar reading. Although there are at least two different field readouts, each on a different monitor. While the images coincide to some degree, not everything present on one shows up on the other.

At the top-most edge of one of the displays, something is moving in a long, slow curve.

Jim just smiles about the brain in the jar finding a new job. "Are you really surprised? I'd say he's uniquely suited for the position." But that is not the matter at hand.

"Is that the Russian sub?"

"Bah. The English probably gave him the job to get him away from Parliament," mutters Tsybenko - but he looks happier than he has since all of this started.

Lua'al-rei tilts his head to one side to get a single-eye view of the monitor. Then he nods. "It is. And it's slowing, by the look of things. The lateral scan is... not a good sign." He points to the readout that looks less like a true sonar display. "We have a physical sense few land species possess that lets us sense ambient electricity, and other energies like it. This is a wide-range outgrowth of that same sense. It is... I don't know how to describe it in your language. 'Running hot' is the best analogue, I think."

"Gaining speed, you mean? Or starting to?" He lenas in closer, as if that helps him not just to see but to think.

"No, I-" Lua'al-rei's gills flare a moment, then settle down again. "There's an accumulation of energy there that should not be. The Nautilus never had that kind of reading, or the Krasny Oktyabr. I think... have you ever been at the site of a lightning strike? Just before the discharge, there's an accumulation, both in the sky and on the ground. It takes some time to build, but..."

"Something related to the rift?" Jim starts to think that maybe... "Try to contact them. The worst that happens is that they don't answer."

Lua'al-rei nods in that down-up gesture once again and touches part of the wall. It slides away to reveal a number of unfamiliar controls, but one of them is a very small version of the lateral scanner. After some fiddling and poking, the small array lights up.

"They should be able to hear now. At least something, if not full sentences."

"Tsybenko, maybe we should just offer a friendly hello, and see if they are okay?"

Tsybenko nods and moves forward, leaning over the device Lua'al-rei indicates. He repeats his sentence twice before leaning back on his heels to wait.

At first there's nothing but static. Just as he's drawing breath to speak again, though, the fuzzy, crackly sound of a tired, nerve-wracked man comes through.

... and the mun quietly facepalms as the song "Silent Running" cues up the lines Can you hear me / Can you hear me running / Can you hear me running, can you hear me calling you?.

"Can you make any of that out?" Jim can't make out the words, but the tone is not the kind of thing he likes. At all.

Tsybenko's brow furrows as he leans in to listen more closely. "First Officer something something Severny," he mutters. "Sukhoy Nos awaiting Admiral Matochkin's orders. Something something reactor... bah, can we get any better contact?" That last is to Lua'al-rei, who shakes his head. "Blast."

"Not a good choice of word just now," the Deep One murmurs.

Tsybenko responds with an extremely rude gesture.

"Much better."

Jim exhales. "I think we have to keep trying. I'm not one to play hunches unduly, but I think that things are about to get worse."

Lua'al-rei silently slides aside another part of the wall aside and begins adjusting what's behind it. Somewhere in the background, a soft humming noise changes in pitch, and the observant may note a faint feeling of turning or accelerating.

Tsybenko ignores it, clearing his throat and leaning over the comunication controls again. "Severny," he repeats in Russian. "Severny, this is Konstantin Tsybenko on board the unaffiliated vessel-"

He stops and looks to Lua'al-rei. "This ship- what's her name, please?"

"We don't name our vessels," the Deep One murmurs.

"Bah." Tsybenko wrinkles his nose. "The unaffiliated vessel to the south of your position. Repeat the part about the reactor, please."

"Main reactor efficiency after Admiral Matochkin's ordered adjustments is higher than expected," answers the other vessel, and Tsybenko translates. "We've implemented control measures under the captain's orders, but they don't seem to be affecting the reactor's progress any..."

Edited 2008-01-28 18:07 (UTC)

"Admiral Matochkin's orders?" That's even more puzzling. "Ask what orders were those."

Tsybenko nods and relays the question. The answers that come back are patchy and technical in nature, and have to be repeated a few times to overcome the static, but if Scotty heard them he'd be turning white. Tsybenko himself is looking ill. "Am not nuclear physicist," he says, "but you do not do that to the control rods simply to ensure your response time is above average. Not unless you want the Wigner effect to go out of control."

"The Wigner effect?" asks Lua'al-rei warily.

"Atomic displacement in solid matter struck by reactor neutrons," says Tsybenko. "Is very good way to get sudden massive rush of heat, the kind that melts bones."

"What on Earth...are they trying to..." Jim turns red with anger more than anything else. Innocent sailors - men not unlike his own in the fleet - are being asked to sacrifice their lives for...well, he's not sure at all for what. But it's wrong.

"Suggestions, gentlemen, for what to do next. Because whatever is going on there needs to stop."

Lua'al-rei hisses at that, actually hisses, and brings one hand up in a curious hooking gesture in front of his face; then, looking ruefully at his fingers, he drops the hand to his lap. "An old superstition," he says. "I'm sorry. Our ancestors knew the nuclear chaos that lies beyond angled space, but that was hundreds of thousands of years ago. We haven't touched the..."

He stops then, turning a little to listen more carefully.

Shiiiiiiiiiing is the sound of something being dragged against something else, deep in the Russian submarine's reactor, and shiiiiiiiiiing against the outside of the ship, and "Vast, Polyphemus-like, and loathsome, it darted like a stupendous monster of nightmares to the monolith, about which it flung its gigantic scaly arms, the while it bowed its hideous head and gave vent to certain measured sounds." at the edge of each individuals ability to hear.

"What is it?" He hates practically barking an order, but time is of the essence (and beside,s he can't quite pronounce the Deep One's name). "What do you hear?"

This guy, if nothing else, has even Vulcans beat.

Humans, when badly frightened, tend to blanch. But they've got nothing on a Deep One in terms of going pale; Lua'al-rei comes very close to turning genuinely white. "Terra preserve us," he mutters. "Dagon. Father Dagon is coming- human, hail the submarine again and tell them we have to evacuate them, now!"

Jim nods at Tsybenko to do so, and then glares at the Deep One. "Who is Dagon?"

"The ancestor of my entire species, the first Deep One to come after Mother Hydra," says Lua'al-rei as Tsybenko begins signaling. "We were ancestor worshippers once, in another Earth's oceans. We were immortal then and more powerful than humans could imagine, and Dagon and Hydra were our oldest, and so our gods. If either of them reached out with their minds to any of us there was nothing that could stop them. My people came to be here and not there when one of the ancient wars tore a rift beneath the waters- a whole army fell through before it closed. Without Dagon, we've become our own people- a people he would consider weak, too flawed to live. If he's even a tenth as strong as the legends say, every Deep One from here to the Middle Waters could be snuffed out like lava in a cold current."

Jim absorbs this. And believes. He's seen enough being of this magnitude before. "Is there a way to stop this process? To get onto the sub and reverse whatever they were trying?"

"Severny says it can be done," says Tsybenko, glancing up from the comms panel. "If we take down two men who guard the reactor and will not move. But we should get the crew off first, just in case."

Lua'al-rei nods. "The faster the better," he says, and he's still only got a little color to him. "That thing is calling to Dagon like a beacon. I'll signal the pilot to match your sub's speed- will the two of you be able to go and do it, do you think?"

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