morally_cryptic | for soresumaster

for soresumaster

[ooc: continuing from this thread]

Anakin frowns and crouches down by the device, running the fingertips of his recently re-attached prosthetic over it (he didn't bother putting the glove back on).

"I didn't mean actual cracking, Obi-Wan. But...the construction is strange. A lightsaber's overkill but some kind of blowtorch might work."

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And here, finally, the probe shows its age. Invisible seams in the shells, outer and inner both, crack, yes, but the mechanisms that would fold them open, tuck them away, or otherwise move them... jam. And then they make a rather horrid noise, and Obi-Wan takes a half-step back, grimacing, and covering his ears.

Obi-Wan isn't the only one to cover his ears. Anakin scowls at the probe.

"Well. Things were moving along too easily," he remarks. "Guess it's time to get the tools again."

"At least we can see a bit more of what's under the shells," Obi-Wan remarks.

"True," Anakin says as he reaches for the light again, "maybe we can see what's jammed the mechanism too."

Hopefully.

"It may be a case of nothing more than time. We should try a lubricant first, I think." Though he does come up beside Anakin again, to peer more closely at the probe.

"If you insist, Master."

Lubricant is easily enough retrieved though it takes Anakin a few moments to decide where best to apply it.

"It can't hurt."

He steps aside again, making room for Anakin to work, and also to be ready to act, if he needs to.

He nods and sets to work, being fairly liberal with the lubricant because why the hell not?

"Should I try actually opening it again or....?"

"Perhaps try manipulating a single segment by hand?"

Anakin sits back for a moment to study the whole thing then leans in again. He starts with what he figures is the most likely part of the exterior components and smiles, pleased, when he manages to start it moving out of the way.

Some of the pieces that it's connected to shift along with it, just as smoothly.

"So far so good," Obi-Wan says, taking a half-step to the side to look at it from a different angle.

He nods and keeps picking and choosing pieces to move and manipulate, relying as much on the Force as regular old human inspiration.

Eventually he'll figure the exterior is open enough to try doing the same to the inner shell.

Unfortunately, the inner shell is far more stubborn; it wiggles, and creaks, and refuses to move. Obi-Wan reaches out cautiously with the Force, and prods it gently.

"Damn."

Anakin sighs and leans back. "Well, it was worth a shot. Could always go back to the lightsaber idea."

He's not entirely serious.

"Why don't we step back, and see if we can get any scans now? We have both of the shells cracked, we ought to be able to get something."

"Good point. Artoo?"

The little droid is all too obliging to start re-scanning though Anakin's fairly certain some of those beeps and whistles were him chastising him for not thinking of Artoo before the lightsaber.

A little smile plays about Obi-Wan's face for a moment; he may not understand Anakin's affection for the droid, but their interactions never fail to entertain.

The droid was practically a wedding gift, Obi-Wan. Even if Anakin hadn't poured quite a large measure of himself into upgrades and tweaks, he'd still treat Artoo like a family member. ~~Not that Obi-Wan has any reason to know that though sometimes this writer wonders why Obi-Wan never wondered why specifically a droid belonging to the former queen of Naboo ended up in Anakin's hands.~~

For his part, Anakin pays fairly close attention to Artoo as he re-scans the probe and tries to keep up with his various beeps and chirps as he goes through the chore. "Well it sounds like he good news is he's getting a lot more information this time."

So far as Obi-Wan is concerned, Anakin has always had a slightly peculiar interest in, and attachment to, all things mechanical. Since he's hardly the first, or only Jedi to have that sort of talent, it's just one more of Anakin's little quirks. ~~And lbr he loves Anakin and his little quirks.~~

"That's excellent news!"

"Not so good news is that he's not sounding real chipper about it."

And Artoo didn't tend toward pessimism.

On that note, the droid finishes his scan and spins around to project the new information before the two Jedi.

It takes a couple of minutes to take it all in, but Obi-Wan's eyes widen a little as he does.

"Oh, that is not good," he says. He continues, raising his voice for the techs to hear him: "Put the hangar on lockdown. Full quarantine."

"Great," Anakin groans, putting a hand over his eyes. "Whose bright idea was this again?"

Though he has absolutely no moral high ground here. If he'd been the one to find the probe he still would've tried opening it whether Obi-Wan was there to suggest it or not.

"The Council's, as it happens," Obi-Wan says with deceptive mildness, as people rush to evacuate the hangar and enact the quarantine procedure.

"You're on the Council, Obi-Wan, that doesn't actually shift the blame very far."

Which is more diplomatic maybe than making any of the unfortunate remarks regarding the Council's collective wisdom that sprang immediately to mind.

"No," he agrees. "It doesn't."

for soresumaster

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So, this is Anakin and Obi-Wan. How disastrous should we make this?

coinflip says a lot disastrous

Excellent. How about a biological von Neumann probe?

all i know about them i just learned in five minutes on google but okay!

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