Decker nodded sharply and re-opened the communication channel. He then switched his tricorder back to monitor and translate any response and began speaking urgently, "To the entity or entities in charge of this facility. This is Christopher Decker of the Federation starship Independence. It is urgent that we communicate with you. We mean you and this facility no harm, but you are about to cause a great deal of destruction. Please assist us in communicating with you."

D'rala helps Saghalie prop himself up against a wall out of sight if he's willing, wanting to keep her hands free to assist in case the Captain's gambit goes wrong.

She knows they have to find a way to interface peacefully with this place, or lives will be lost, and accepts that whatever comes of those efforts will come. Hopefully, this time, less lives will be lost.

Tsolo obeys(more or less), sitting with his back to the4 wall. Water he asks.

"T'Lara, what are the chances that you can pull a symbol for 'peace', or 'assistance', from your knowledge of this language you've been studying?"

"...I'll...I'll try" she stammers "Though going by what we know about whomever built this station, supplications aren't going to help.   We need to order them"

"... then a symbol of authority.  Just, see if you can find me something to use ... something to show them that we are trying, and that we are here to help".
He wouldn't know what she offered him, anyway: he'd be accepting and trusting her advice and judgement.

"Oh sure," JavKer replied saltily.  "I'll find us another master control room and the big giant off button.  Just gimme a sec."

He snorted and huffed, but dutifully ran his scan, doing his best to find an alternative for them with his tricorder, complaining under his breath as he did so.

He was, after all, a Tellarite.

As JavKer ran his scan, ch'Pertha lowered his weapon and took a measured step forward.  The two towering crimson guardians angled their visors to regard him.  But there was no immediate action. The Andorian was sure that he had their attention, though.

Meanwhile Decker went to work trying to negotiate with the alien machinery.  There was a few bleeps and chirps in response... and then a clicking, and an alternate hum.  Something was happening.  He might be making progress. Or something else was interfering...

T'Lara tried to pull up a symbol from the alien iconography that would help...

(OOC: T'Lara can make an Insight + Command roll with a Difficulty of 3.  Her focus in Linguistics applies!)

T'Lara wished she could speak the alien language, rather than just read it.  It would have made things much easier, not requiring her to pull out her Tricorder, type in the symbols, and turn the small screen toward the killbots so they could read her order to stand down and leave the area.

OOC: I did get 3 successes on the Insight + Command.  But also one complication...

LCDR T'Lara rolled 29 using 3d20 with rolls of 1,8,20.  Command kill-bots (insight + command) + 1 momentum

If D'rala has water on her person she hands it over to her injured crew member.

She watches intently as Commander ch'Pertha continues to advance towards the artifact's guardians. These people who rescued them are interesting indeed. They seem competent and caring as a group--good Starfleet officers.

D'rala thinks back to her team's experience with the artifact, trying to pinpoint anything more that could help them.

As T'Lara came forward and presented the single burning icon on her tricorder to the towering guardian robots, their attention snapped from ch'Pertha to her, and they loomed menacingly.

Then her instructions scrolled across the tricorder.

There was a pause.  If they'd been human, they'd have almost glanced at one another, that was the impression.

And then they glided aside, one to each side of the door, flanking it.  But allowing passage.

D'rala knows that beyond that door is the chamber where they found the interface that they used to try to access the massive artifact's computers.

"Good work, Ltn Commander", ch'Pertha said with a smile, as he carefully retrieved his weapon.
Then, alongside T'Lara, he led the rest of the team into the Control Room.

"Ltn Commander Vex, please work with my team.  You have experience with this room that you all need, to reverse whatever happened".

And he let the collective group here 'do their thing' to fix the situation.

Everything seeming to be happening at once, and Mcreeg almost doesn't know were to look, his eyes and phaser never seeming to stay in one place too long, even as he stays as out of the way as he can, doing his best to keep the link going with Lt Nipay, hoping there's more he can learn, more he can pass on..

Decker made sure to disable all the active sensing elements of his tricorder before following ch'Pertha into the room. He had no intention of triggering an(other) attack.

"Lieutenant Commander Vex, just to be clear, all your team did here was to activate the interface when you were attacked, correct? I'm asking because if that's the case, it doesn't seem like your team directly caused something as complex as this event. It was someone or something else which executed that command. And we need to talk to them. Trying to do it ourselves means, well..."

He gestures at the killbots.

"Gentlemen", ch'Pertha said, noticing Mcreeg's edginess, "Weapons away".
It was a risk, but one he was willing to take if the menace of murder-bot had been de-escelated for now.

OOC: For the record, Decker has been working his tricorder and futzing with his suit's communicator - his phaser has been on its belt clip (or whatever) for a while now.

As I had envisaged it

The order pulls his attention, for a moment he doesn't realize it's not coming from Nipay and it takes another moment to process, and tho he doesn't agree with it, and yes, there are times to bend orders, this is not one of them and Mcreeg lowers and secures his weapon..

"Aye, Sir"

"Aye, Commander," D'rala replies to Ch'pertha's request, carefully walking further into the room.

"Yes." She nods in response to Decker's question. "We activated the console and successfully interfaced with it. I don't think it was just the activating it that launched the security protocols, it was probably our brief unauthorized interaction with the system."

If in fact somebody has water to give, or gives Tsolo water, he drinks and perks up. He asks the air What's happening?

As they team holstered their phasers, the killbots stood to either side of the door... not entering the room, nor barring them in any way.

Rather than a grand, sweeping master control room, the party finds what D'Rala and Tsolo knew they would... a small adjunct node, not much bigger than the auxiliary control room on the Independence.

Decker's premise was partly correct.  All D'rala's team had done was activate the interface, and then begin to try to use it.  They hadn't done much more than enter a basic query... certainly not enough to set off a complex chain of events, unless it had been long pre-programmed to occur.

D'rala had offered T'solo water, and the battered COMMS officer could now speak.  His vision was beginning to clear.  He recognized this place, the control room where it had all gone wrong.

Over in one corner was the crushed body of a Starfleet Officer.  D'rala knew it was their science specialist, LT Rose.  She had been the first to die... the one who'd interfaced with the machine... the pylon that had speared her still pinned her corpse to the deck.

The control panel / interface stood, flickering with lights and sigils.  They'd changed since the last time D'rala's team had been in the room.  They were active, and... with a passive scan... Decker could see someone ELSE was obviously interacting with it, someone not in this room.

Decker frowned in concentration for a moment, then approached the panel, glancing around as if wondering where HIS pylon would strike from. "XO, someone else appears to be actively interfacing with the artifact. Possibly from another secondary interface like this. I believe I may be able to trace that without being so invasive that anything....reacts to me. I may also be able to gain a trace on the main control center."

Tsolo's vision and senses clear enough for him to remark The pattern...some mix of Federation and Vulcan.

ch'Pertha's eyes narrowed at the news from Decker; "Please do so, Ltn Commander", he said, "as gently as possible".

They were not likely to be able to achieve any good here, with someone else deliberately working against them in the system.
And time was running short.
ch'Pertha suspected that he'd need to deal with the 'other' personally, before his team could right the issues they were here to work on.

The Science Officer nodded in reply to the XO, but was mostly lost in thought as he pondered Tsolo's comment, "Fascinating..."

First he tried trace the location of whoever or whatever it was that was interfacing with the artifact...

21:15, Today: LCDR Christopher Decker rolled 41 using 4d20 with rolls of 9,11,8,13.  Tracing the operator (spending 3 momentum for 2 dice) - Reason(12) + Science(5) w/ Computer focus.
4 successes, no complications. :P 1 momentum back to the pool, as he get 2 Obtain Informations for free.
So, where are they, and what ARE they doing to or with the artifact?