Fellowship of the Dice

"Got a keypad. Amir or Zaynab, can one o' you get this open?"

"Let's see," says Zaynab, taking a look, but deferring to Amir's greater expertise.

Amir pulls out his tools, and starts fiddling with the keypad. "No problem, I'll take a look at it." He looks over at Zaynab. "Would much appreciate another pair of eyes on this." He consults with his colleague as he starts his attempt at bypassing security and opening the door.

As Amir and Zaynab are working at the heavy door, a crackle of static comes over the ship's internal comms system, followed by an ominous voice:

"Turn around! This ship is doomed and at the mercy of the Icons"

Silence returns and after a few more moments of working, Amir's efforts (aided by Zaynab) are rewarded with a satisfying clunk from the door and the keypad turns from red to green.

"Oh, brother." Basil groans. When his shipmates manage to unlock the door, he shoves it open and uses the light from his exo suit to find his way around in the Machine Hall, looking for the problem.

Zaynab looks up at the sound of the voice. "So, someone is still alive here! I should be relieved--but that announcement just makes me more worried." She looks around to see if there is a comm system she can access to reply.

Amir puts away his tools with a look of satisfaction. "Everything is at the mercy of the Icons, what makes this ship any different?" He instructs his drone to follow Basil with a light shining, helping to illuminate their surroundings. He takes out his rifle again, ready to be attacked. At least one person is alive on board, and he isn't taking any chances.

Basil opens the door, the heavy portal sliding to one side with a loud grating sound. The drone's light illuminates a small area in front of Basil, but the Machine Hall is a huge cavernous room.

The faint emergency lighting outlines three gigantic graviton machines towering in the dark, surrounded by a jumble of ramps and ladders. The pulsating machines, the intense heat, and the labyrinthine network of girders and walkways give the halls a nightmarish atmosphere. The semi-dark and the clutter of ramps and ladders that surrounds the machines makes for a chaotic, somewhat unnerving impression.

Zaynab can't see anything near the door that resembles a comms unit, but you imagine there will be a master control panel somewhere in the halls.

"Yep, I think we're in for a hairy situation, so stick close." Basil is on guard with his knife out. He starts trying to find his way, relying on his experience working on ships in drydock. Maybe he recognizes a familiar pattern in the layout?

Basil uses his knowledge of similar class haulers to head towards the likely position of the master control panel, aided by the light from the drone, hovering around head height a few meters in front of him. Metal walkways form a scaffold around each of the three huge engines housed in the halls, separated by three great bulkheads, designed to protect each engine should something happen to one of the others. Emergency lighting casts sinister crimson shadows across everything, and while there are numerous status boards, and djinn panels all over the machine halls, it is difficult to know which are active and which panels relate to what parts of the ship.

The lights from your drone and exo suits only goes so far into the halls, blocked by stairways, ladders, towering consoles and great bundles of cables and tubing that hangs across access ways.

Basil believes the central of the three halls would be the likely place to find the master controls, so you are making your way there, when above the humming and other 'natural' sounds of the great idling graviton engines Zaynab hears the sound of movement, up on one of the walkways, suspended around the huge central engine.