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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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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?"

"It's why Ray sent us. So we will do what we can." Jim tries to look bold and ready. But he misses having his ship and the technoloy of his time behind him.

Under ordinary circumstances the Russians would take a hell of a lot more convincing to allow any kind of contact whatsoever with an unknown vessel. But some of these men came from families that once lived within sight of a place called Mayak, and others are from Prypiat. And the noises have been going on for some time now, just at the edge of hearing. There isn't a man on the Sukhoy Nos who doesn't know, deep in his bones, that time is running out.

"You two are going to have to go in there without me," says Lua'al-rei as he leads the two humans back to the docking portal in the ship's side. "I doubt your countrymen will have built the submarine to fit my size. Warn the men what to expect, please?"

"We will." Jim has removed the outer layers of the Arctic gear. He wonders if he should be armed, but dismisses that as merely being decades of Starfleet training.

Lua'al-rei nods and opens the seal between the two vessels. "Good luck," he says, and shoos them both through.

If Kirk listens very carefully on the way into the sub he might just hear Tsybenko muttering, "Ot'ebis'! Am cosmonaut, not action hero!"

Jim hides a smile at the Russian's reaction. A smile that fades as they enter the dark of the sub.

"Lo! the red moon from the ocean's low hazes
Rises in ominous grandeur to view!"

"... ебать-копать," is all Tsybenko says to the feeling of those words scratching their way across the back of his psyche.

By the look of things he's not the only one who feels that way. Normally a submarine crew looking at a pair of unfamiliar arrivals would be composed mostly of hostile faces mixed in with carefully neutral ones, but the Russians who were waiting near the sub's entrance look, to a man, as if they're barely a hair on the safe side of the breaking point. One of them steps forward and speaks; Tsybenko starts translating immediately. "Chief Ship Starshina- is Senior Chief Petty Officer, to you- Symon Petliura," he says. "You said you can get us out of here?"

Edited 2008-01-28 20:47 (UTC)

Jim isn't sure he heard anything. But he feels ever more uneasy as he follows Tsybenko.

"Yes. We have our own sub. It's a bit...unusual. But that doesn't matter at the moment. What matters is getting everyone off and stopping the reaction.

"Who's the chief engineer?"

"Captain-Lieutenant Apalkov," says Starshina Petliura, through the other man's translation. "He's been against this mission from the start."

"Let me talk to him. The rest of you, I suggest you leave immediately in case we can't stop the reaction." The tone in Jim's voice is that of a man used to people following his orders.

Petliura nods and barks a series of orders ("Get your asses off this godforsaken tin can now," Tsybenko translates) to the men around him. After the first wave of sailors makes it to the ladder he jerks his chin towards Kirk and Tsybenko. "This way, please- and hurry."

As they follow, Jim lets himself look around. He was never that interested in the Silent Service, but it reminds him a lot of some early spaceships, cramped and smelly, giving the sense that no one really belongs here.

The Enterprise- any iteration thereof- must seem positively paradisical compared to this. The Sukhoy Nos is a hundred and seventy-five meters long and just barely has room for a hundred and sixty men. There are decent places on the sub, to be sure, but they're in the crew areas, not down towards the engine rooms and the reactor. And that's where they're heading- away from the parts of the vessel meant for men, and down into the belly of the beast.

Tsybenko mutters to Kirk as they pass through an especially narrow corridor, "I had an uncle on one of these things. How Arkady failed to go mad is beyond me."

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