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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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"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."

"As I recall, the space station wasn't much bigger. People have a way of adjusting." Though the space station wasn't this hot. Clearly they are heading towards the reactor. Jim hopes that he won't need to make up something to explain to Bones why he needs treatment for radiation poisoning.

"Da, but space does not care about you, is only empty. The ocean actively wants you to die," is Tsybenko's only comment as Petliura starts banging on a tightly sealed door and shouting. "Oh- he says to get out here, is emergency situation, never mind the Admiral's orders, the Admiral is a misbegotten son of a whore, all of the usual things..."

A moment later the door swings open and a burly blond man who must have just barely squeaked past the maximum size limitations for a submarine sailor pokes his head out. He squints at the two men not in uniform and rumbles a question to the Starshina.

"He asks who we are, he gets told who we are, he asks why my worthless hide has not yet been tacked to a wall in Moscow for causing such disruption to the national image in space-" Tsybenko rolls his eyes. "Petliura, tell him he can insult me later. We have a submarine to save, hey?" Looking back to Kirk he adds, "Persona non grata is very ugly phrase, but from the right mouths, it sticks."

Jim nods. There's no time to get into anything but what's going on.

"Tell us what's going on with the reactor. How close is to whatever the admiral ordered? Can it be stopped?"

Apalkov rubs at his nose with his thumb and thinks a moment before speaking. "He says he can reverse it if he has five minutes undisturbed," translates Tsybenko. "And he asks if the men are still there- Matochkin's men who were blocking the way."

He looks to Petliura, who shakes his head blankly.

"All right. We do not know if the men are still in the way, but is this or is leave entire Arctic ice cap glowing like firefly," says Tsybenko. "Kirk, we go to reactor room now. If Matochkin's- hm, I think word is stooges- get in the way, you and I have permission of Captain-Lieutenant Apalkov and Chief Ship Starshina Petliura to hit them." He smiles, the closest Kirk's ever seen to a sunny expression on his face. "Shall we go?"

"Let's." It's time like this that Jim would kill for a phaser (so to speak).
A phaser could actually be set to knock the goons and not breach the hull.

Then again, it's not like he has any kind of weapon. "And stooges will do. Though 'goon' and 'thug' were...are popular terms as well.

"This admiral...do you know anything about him?" Jim likes to talk sometimes, to relieve the tension.

It's entirely possible that a bullet fired inside this vessel wouldn't breach the hull, given the construction of Typhoon-class submarines in general. On the other hand, the interior walls and dividers can't protect all of the pipes, tubes, wires, and other conduits- and they're heading for the reactor now, so severing one of those is probably not a chance anyone wants to take.

Tsybenko shakes his head, but the Starshina looks curiously their way at the English words, so Tsybenko starts translating. "Yevgeny Andreiivich Matochkin," he says. "Comes from Chelyabinsk Oblast, in the Urals. I think from what used to be Ozyorsk, before they closed the town completely. Matochkin has been close advisor to President Antonov for years now on many policy matters, not only the military ones."

"And have there been any rumors about his...stability? Or loyalty?" Someplace in the back of his mind, the captain recalls that the events on the space station and at mission control were brought about by the wrong people being in the wrong place at the right time. He wonders if there's some sort of connection.

"Not the loyalty, no," Petliura responds instantly. "Never the loyalty. Matochkin has always put Russia first, even in the old Soviet days."

Apalkov rumbles something under his breath, which Tsybenko translates as, "Matochkin wants to be on the winning side, is all. 'My country first- the rest get the pieces'."

"Surely he can't think that unleashing whatever is on the the other side of the rift is going to serve the interests of anyone on Earth.

"Or is he as much of a doubter in matters of the seemingly paranormal?" It would explain the origins of the rather foolish Russian policy.

Steadily, Jim and his guides get closer. He listens for any sign of the stooges.

"Oh, he is doubter, all right," growls Apalkov through Tsybenko's translation. "If you call the source of the national policy a doubter. He is first and loudest in-"

The rest of the sentence goes untranslated, because Tsybenko breaks off and starts swearing under his breath at a degree of vulgarity that leaves even the sailors looking shocked. "How does the English run?" asks Tsybenko when he can get civilized again. "'Methinks he does protest too much'?"

"Perhaps, and I agree that we probably don't have the time for such details, but if we can get this fixed, it might not be a bad idea to have the Ministry debrief him, and much of the crew."

Jim looks around, knowing there will be a fight, and trying to find something that might be a good weapon if needed.

The thing about highly technical areas of a submarine is that they're usually heavily protected. It takes tools to get to them. Big, heavy tools. Wrenches, for example. There's several of those available if Kirk happens to look in the right places.

Petliura holds up a hand and points straight ahead silently. There's a turn in the corridor up ahead, and if you listen carefully, you can hear the sound of someone who isn't supposed to be there, breathing.

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