The voice that comes back through the door is male, and a bit muffled by the sturdy panel, "Hey, sorry to bother you.  I heard you know about computers.  I need a bit of help with one that's been giving me problems.  If I don't get it fixed then I'm going to be in serious trouble.  Can you at least take a quick look at it, tell me what might be wrong, and then I'll leave you alone."

The blast door has stopped closing, with a gap which is somewhat less than a metre wide, to allow a few more firefighters through.  There are people lined up to get through the narrow opening, and a tech is standing nearby with an access panel open and his hand inside, apparently keeping the door from closing any further.

Of course, being a tech, and not terminally stupid, he's made sure that when he releases the door to finish closing, he will be on the safe side of it...

As soon as Rhijans noticed the door stopped, he took off running toward it.  It was at about the same time Shard started running in the same direction.  Another person might have been tempted to try and reason with her, convince her to stay on this side of the doors, in some degree of relative safety...

But there was no safety, not really.  If that ship blew, with all the additional explosives and power-packs aboard, it would likely take out every other ship still in the hangar...and all of the fuel and munitions stockpiled to keep them operating.  Blast doors wouldn't stop that.  The mountain itself probably wouldn't stop that.

If it did, there would be no communications gear left.  There would be no ships left, and likely very little food left.  The next ship to visit the planet would most likely be Imperial, to investigate the blast--assuming it wasn't engineered by an Imperial agent.  Anyone who managed to survive the blast, and stay alive with very little shelter or food available, would end up in an Imperial cell.

All of that flashed through his head, quickly, as they ran.  Really, there was no good reason for anyone to be anywhere other than in the hangar, fighting the fire.  Certainly no good reason to be hoping the blast doors would hold.  "Move!  Get out of the way!" he yelled as they approached the door.

Haarmon cocks a wary eye at Juragga. The look was equal parts confusion and query. Is this guy for real? It said. And you think this is it? There was no way this guy showed up just up looking for the IT department right now. And no way he persists after Juragga gave him the patented Wookie go-away.

So. Either he was a total laser-brain. Or he was the guy. And the answer was the same either way.

"Sorry, pal," he called out, not at all kindly, "We're outsourcing all that shit to Rigel 4 now. Take your misery and jump system. We've got all we need."
This message was last edited by the player at 13:10, Tue 08 Oct 2013.

Apparently she and Rhijans both are joining the ranks of the terminally stupid.  Shard shakes her head as she sprints, persperation already beginning thanks to her earlier workout.  At least she's limbered up for this.

There's a lineup; Rhijans seems intent on jumping to the head of the queue, and she follows his lead, running in his wake.  Shard isn't certain what good she'll do on the other side, not being a trained firefighter, but any assistance is better than nothing.  Plus, there's always the possibility she might have skills that others don't possess, and an all-purpose key to assist in getting through any barriers.

This...isn't going to be good, is it?

Well, at least she has tried to put things back together in her life.  And, the older woman decides, it's a cursed sight better dying trying to save lives than taking them.  Two fools, she silently considers, keeping focused on following Rhijans.  Course, it'll make for good company if the whole place goes.

Void, I hope Haarmon and Juragga make it through.

Rhijans and Shard make their way into the hangar, where the first thing they see is what looks a lot like organised chaos.

But at least it does seem organised.

Human crew and techs are busy moving cargo containers away from the damaged ship, assisting injured colleagues, and directing droids into the interior of the ship to fight the fire.  One group of men and women, their clothing blackened by soot and smoke, with breath masks dangling around their necks are getting instructions from a senior officer.

Somebody spots Rhijans and Shard, and calls out to them, "You two...  If you know how to deal with a fire, grab a mask and an extinguisher,  Otherwise, help move the cargo, or tend the injured, if you can."

There is a sudden dull thump, and the smoke coming from the ship thickens.  A moment later, several droids come hurrying out of the burning vessel...

Whoever is outside Haarmon's door is quiet for a moment or three.  then the voice comes again.  Quieter.  "Listen.  I need to talk to you about what happened.  In the hangar.  I mean, I wasn't there, but I heard about it."

Juragga hooted through the door a low warble.  "Do they have beer?" he asked in Wookiee.

Haarmon's heart did a double-thump in his chest and started racing along like it was trying to win a pod race. He took a breath and tried to calm down. But words like Haarmon and calm usually didn't show up in the same room (heck, the same sector) so it was some pretty hard going.

Juragga's comment made him smile and utter a short laugh. He shook his head and gave the Wookie a smile as he walked over to the door.

He pulled it open. Just a little. "If you're here to summon me to whassername's room for my official chastising, forget it."

Rhijans lacked any real training in fighting fires...but that didn't stop him from grabbing a mask and a couple of extinguishers.  If he had to throw himself into the blaze to get himself in a position where he could do something about it, he would...wounded in a fire was still recoverable.  Atomized inside an artificial volcanic eruption was pretty final.

Without a word or much in the way of second thoughts, he moved into the ship, looking for the fire they needed help fighting.  That--fighting--was something he knew how to do...

Rhijans follows the first group into the ship.  She must still have power - lights are functioning, though with the thick smoke that fills the hull, the lamps seem to provide more shadow than illumination.

The colour of the smoke, in the places where cones of light shine through it, speaks of chemical fumes and burning plastics.  Just the thing to make the firefighters grateful for their masks.  In the gloom, Rhijans manages to stay right behind the man directly in front of him who, fortunately, seems to know where he's going.

In the bowels of the ship, a room filled with hulking dark shapes which loom out of the smoke and seem to dance and gyrate in the flickering light of the flames the team start using extinguishers on the fires.  The heat is intense, even by Mothessh's standards, and Rhijans soon finds himself sweating profusely...

Shard, meanwhile, is still considering where she could do the most good...

Through the open door, Barsh, the quartermaster's assistant grins at Haarmon and Juragga.  "I'm not here to summon you anywhere.  I'm just here to talk to you, just for a bit."

In his hands he holds a portable data terminal, clearly his excuse for coming here, and he looks up and down the corridor, before nodding towards the interior of the room, "So... are you going to let me in?"

"Close enough," Shard mutters, grabbing the provided equipment and hurrying after Rhijans and the other 'firefighters'.  Reaching the ship, she winces at the heat and pauses a moment.  There are a few things she can do to keep herself alive in this mess, possibly handling things a little longer than other people might.

It's the work of a moment - a moment might be too much here, but there are others already in the ship.  If she can set things up so she can function in there longer, that might help more than getting in quickly.

The woman concentrates, struggling to find that perfect balance between ice and fire within her spirit, then using that balance to assist her body in enduring the vicious heat.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:08, Tue 15 Oct 2013.

Haarmon frowned at the guy behind the door. He was trying to remember that the pretend Haarmon that he was pretending to be wasn't trying to make contact with an enemy spy, he was just mad as hell and not gonna take it any more. Or whatever.

So what would THAT Haarmon do? Say something really clever and go home and have a nap.

True enough. But not very constructive.

So he shrugged and walked away from the door like he didn't much care one way or the other. He gave Juragga a long, significant be ready look on his way back across the room.

He was really, really happy the Wookie was here.

He flopped down into the chair at his terminal and looked up at the guy.

You expected fighting a fire to be comfortable? Rhijans asked himself.  He didn't bother answering, he'd already known and resigned himself to his possible fate the moment he chose to run for the blast door.  He grit his teeth and pushed onward.  Even if they couldn't kill the fire, they could buy time to get the cargo cleared out and minimize the blast damage if anything too important caught fire.

He'd have to gauge just how aggressively he could keep pushing once they actually got to the fire itself...

Rhijans pushes himself forward, and between the smoke and the sweat poring down his face he can barely see.  Forced to slow down, he is soon overtaken by Shard, who looks surprisingly cool and comfortable.  The two step into a chamber where the light is brighter, not because there is less of the thick black smoke, but simply because of the intense flames dancing over the equipment.

"You two!" the figure is almost the same colour as the smoke, which is perhaps an indication of how long it's been in here, "Go around that side, see if you can work your way back across."  The voice might be female, but muffled as it is by the breathing apparatus and hoarse from yelling over the sound of the fire, it isn't really possible to tell with any certainty.

Then she(?) moves on, wih instructions for others...

Barsh steps into the room and closes the door behind him.  He looks up (and up, and up) at Juragga, nods at the Wookiee, and turns his attention to Haarmon as he sets the terminal down on a table.  "So, I hear you had a run in with Collas in the hangar?  In front of everybody.  Man, nobody stands up to her.  Even on her best days she's like a rancor in a bad mood.  What was it about?" he asks, eagerly...

Rhijans resisted the urge to try and wipe sweat away...it would only come pouring back out of his skin again, and might knock his filter mask ajar...and who knew what kind of fumes were coming off the fire.  Following the directions given, he moved off to one side, locating what he thought was a likely spot to douse some of the flames, and activated the extinguisher.

Floating in a balance between light and dark, Shard considers her problem.

She has, most certainly, caught up.  At present, the difficulty of 'heat' has been dealt with - she knows it's extreme from how Rhijans looks, but can't feel it herself.  The issue, however, is that to maintain her current resistence, she'll need to divide her concentration.  In this kind of situation, that will seriously degrade her effectiveness at dealing with the flames.

The older woman thins her lips, nodding slowly.  "Right," she whispers.  This...this is going to hurt.

It feels like stepping into a blast furnace.

Snarling an oath under her breath, she moves to assist Rhijans, keeping their efforts coordinated in an attempt to cover the most area.

Juragga frowned at the newcomer.  He warbled a mild protest that consisted basically of "No beer?" and a pout.

Sighing, he rose his titanic form from the couch and stretched, muscles like steel cables under his shaggy pelt, before ambling to the fridge to scrounge up some brew.  He acted as disinterested as possible, but of course, was trying to hear every word.

Rhijans and Shard push forward, directing their extinguishers anywhere that looks like a source of flames.  The extinguishers seem pretty efficient, and soon the pair have made themselves some space to advance.  The equipment around them is still hot, casings buckled by the heat, and the area is less than comfortable.  Next to Shard, flames suddenly burst out of the machinery as something collapses inside, and the area she had just cleared reignites.

An R2 droid rolls up behind Rhijans and starts prying one of the newly extinguished casings open.  Oily black smoke pours out of the equipment inside, but that doesn't stop the droid reaching into the interior to start working on it...

Barsh watches the Wookiee head for the fridge.  But his attention is divided between looking to see if there is anything to drink, and trying to coax the full story out of Haarmon. 

"Is it true you were fighting?  I'll tell you, you're probably better off out of there.  I heard there's a fire in one of the ships."

Haarmon's response is a non-committal grunt, but then he sits for a moment, and looks like he might be about to add to it...

Haarmon was no longer really sure that this guy was their guy. Maybe he was their guy, But maybe he was just nosy. Plenty of that going on at the best of times.

"Yeah we had a fight. More like I had a fight and she kind of stood there doing the mouth-breathing routine. What's it to you, anyway? You the It Girl round here or something?"

He watched Juragga out of the corner of his eye, grateful for the Wookie's display.

"Rags? You wanna get Mr. E-Talk Daily here a beer? Keeping up on your gossip is thirsty work. Am I right?"

Rhijans paused his advance, momentarily, to be certain that whatever the droid was doing wasn't interrupted by another burst of flames.  He figured the droid's errand must be somehow important...it wasn't like R2 units were rolling in on the heels of all the other firefighters and working on freshly-extinguished areas.  He spared a glance in Shard's direction, to make sure she was still clear of the flames, and to make sure they still had a path of retreat...not that he had any plans to use it, but if one of them went down, a clear path was the only way someone could get to them.  If they got cut off by flames coming back up behind them, there was pretty much only one way for that to end...

Shard doesn't even curse - it's too hot for that now, and she needs to spare her breath.  She shoots a glance at Rhijans, considering asking him to combine their efforts, then abandons that idea; in the past, she hasn't exactly shown aptitude for that sort of thing.  Regardless, she needs to get this fire out - now - so they can continue.

Sweat plasters her hair to her forehead as the heat jacks up higher, thanks to the reignited machinery.  Do your job, curse it!  Sipping her air, she directs her extinguisher and attempts to snuff the flames.

She grits her teeth.  They're not doing so well, here, and failure potentially means hundreds of deaths.

OOC - An awesome 9!  As a firefighter, I am terrible.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:04, Tue 22 Oct 2013.

Juragga returned to the front room with a pair of Kashyyk beers, one in each shaggy paw.  Without comment, he offered one to the newcomer.  Then he flopped into a huge air-cushion chair with a heavy FLOMPH.

Using his climbing claw, he popped the lid off the beer with a hiss.

Barsh accepts the bottle with thanks, and, as if to demonstrate that people who work in the Quartermaster's store have everything, he fishes an adjustable torque applicator out of his pocket and uses it to pop the cap.  Raising the now open bottle in salute to Juragga, he takes a long pull at it before grimacing.  "Wookiee brew, eh?  Got a lot of flavour to it." he comments, a little hoarsely.

Clearing his throat he turns to Haarmon.  "Look... I know it's not easy here.  We're at the wrong end of the Galaxy for R&R.  Apart from this... " he gestures with the beer bottle, "... the nearest alcohol must be a couple of parsecs away.  We've got no sabbac girls, and the only entertainment is going outside to blast tree stumps.  Equipment is scarce most of the time, and Collas is always riding everybody.  Something has to snap."

He pauses, seeming to appraise Haarmon before continuing, "I think we can work together to make life here a bit more comfortable for us both.  I can see to it that you get a share in the best stuff from the supply shipments.  Better equipment, a few more luxuries, that sort of thing."

In the inferno that used to be an engine room, Shard is making progress.  The fire in the nearest piece of equipment is out again, and this time it isn't coming back.  With the flames extinguished, the R2 unit hurries across to start work as soon as the former Jedi moves clear.

Rhijans seems to be having the worst of the luck this time.  The smoke and flames don't seem to be clearing as he applies the extinguisher...

Barsh looks expectantly at Haarmon, then at Juragga, and back to Haarmon.  "So... what do you think?  Do we have a deal?  You help me with what I want, and I help you get whatever you need, up to and including Hennarian brandy frome Kourene's own stock.  The smooth stuff."

The fire fighting is going reasonably well.  At least nothing has exploded yet, and Shard and Rhijans seem to be making steady (if slow) progress.  Every time they manage to extinguish the flames in one of the equipment cabinets the droid m9oves up behind them to make sure that everything is secure.

The R2 is almost black now, with soot from the fires, and Shard and Rhijans start to realise that they probably don't look that different...

"Outstanding," Shard croaks into her mask.  Her throat burns from the hot air; it's about all she can manage.  Sweat has long since ceased to be a problem, and she's probably suffering from dehydration.  But they're pulling this off, slowly but surely.

It's working.

She should laugh at the R2 Unit, laugh at Rhijans, laugh at herself, but the situation remains dire.  This fire has to be contained.  Her mentor probably could have shown her some more easy way to do it - draw the heat out of the area and disperse it elsewhere, or something along those lines - but Shard never got to that point with him, thanks to their vast differences in opinion (first) and a stray imperial blaster bolt (second).

But, she considers, </i>I can hold a fire extinguisher.  And use it.</i>

*pfft*

In her hands, the extinguisher puts forth only a puff of air.  Oh, for the love of...  Snarling under her breath, Shard frantically shakes the cylinder.

OOC - The dice hate me.  3d6+1 first gives me a 9, then a 7.

Rhijans kept his worries in check...some part of his mind observed, with dry irony, that these ships were designed to keep their occupants warm out in the ultimate cold of space...so they would do an excellent job of holding the heat from the fire inside.  He was seeing that first-hand.

But there was nothing to be done for it.  It was either put out the fire, or die...and while he was not necessarily afraid of dying, he was certainly in no hurry to try it out and see what might follow.  And he was definitely opposed to the idea of letting it happen to someone else--someone he felt responsible for, in some degree, when there was anything he could do about it.

So, he forced himself to continue, slowly, methodically, doing what he could to make sure each area was completely extinguished before he moved onward, trying to avoid having to back-track, keeping a path moving ahead for the R2 unit to come in and presumably shut stuff down to contain the vulnerabilities and reduce the risks for the ship--and, thus, the whole base.

But, damn, it was hot...