Ned eyed the makeshift harness, it didn't fill him with a massive amount of confidence but what else could they do? they had to get down to the reactor and get it working, he took a deep breath which caused him more pain than he'd been expecting and made him jerk for his side involuntarily.
"It doesn't look like I've got much choice really does it?" he responded to Rance with a rather defeatist tone, the adrenaline in his system was starting to fade and reality was setting in, both men were injured, they still had a good 90% of their task in front of them and Ned was currently looking at a DIY winch. He had faith in Rance that it would hold, he had no doubt in his mind that his friend wouldn't suggest the option if he wasn't 100% sure that it would hold and work as described, still, it wasn't an ideal scenario.
Ned got himself comfortable, or as comfortable as one could be in the situation, and began his descent, the burning sensation coming from his side was starting to get worse, even more so when he wobbled in the harness and jerked himself tightly to the former grappling wire, rubbing the wound against it, this resulted in a cry of pain from the engineer's mouth, but he did his best to suppress it.
Finally, his feet hit solid durasteel, and he untangled himself from the wiring, he looked around at his surroundings before pulling out the glowrod that Rance had given him to make his task easier. Ned stood at the bottom of where the ladder should be for a moment, him and Rance hadn't actually discussed what would happen from this point onwards and unfortunately they had originally only had one comms device with them that was currently in Rance's possesion, "For feth sake" exclaimed Ned, his friends colourful use of language rubbing off on him, as he realised he was going solo.
He walked along in the direction of the reactor, or at least where he was imagining it would be, there hadn't been consideration for the fact the two men may split up, Rance had all the knowledge of the layout, all the communication gear, Ned was here purely to fix stuff, and with their injuries the simple task of relaying as much infomation as possible to Ned had been forgotten.
Eventually making it to the reactor Ned assessed the situation, things wern't as bad as they could be, the damage caused by the mynocks had been mainly to auxiliary wiring for things they wouldn't necessarily need, there was a few wires that needed replacing and reseating but not a massive amount of work in all honesty, the lack of fire was making the work Ned was doing here a nicer environment than what he had been confronted with on the Tears however unlike then he did have a burning sensation coming from his war wound.
Ned was messing around with a console trying to get a feed to it, hoping to be able to do a quick diagnostic check on the system, his goal was to see if the system flagged anything up before he tried starting up the system, as he managed to get a flicker of power to the system he realised two things, the first was that there was an issue, and it was one Ned wouldn't be able to do much about, there was an exhaust chute not too far away from their encounter with the Droidekas that was blocked, what it was Ned wasn't sure what it was but he was certain he wouldn't be able to get to it to fix it, sure he could reverse his tracks to Rance and find the blockage, sort that and the system might be ready to go but how long would that take? It would be much easier if he could get a message to Rance to investigate the blockage and try to sort that issue out, it was something he could do with the help of the station's primitive PA system, the problem with that would be anyone or anything on the system would know they were here, and the rough location of the two of them.
The second thing Ned had realised, and it made him work at the first task even harder, was that he wasn't alone here. He didn't know what was lurking in the shadows, but he knew he was being watched. He finished working on the PA system and tested out his theory.
"R-man this is Mech-1" he had no idea where the nicknames came from but something he'd read somewhere that you didn't use your real names on airwaves you knew were not secured and they were the first ones that came to mind, he was hoping Rance would understand, "Issue needs dealing with by you, exhaust blockage on vent 2d, say 150m west from the DD's" he was hoping again that Rance would pick up Dead Droidekas from that, he really didn't want to lead anyone straight to Rance however he wasn't 100% sure that his code was understandable, if someone knew the layout of the station off by heart they may know the location of that exhaust vent anyway, but he had to ensure Rance went to the right one.
"I'll be able to see if its been removed" he steadied himself for the next part of his message unsure of the reaction he would get, "Hurry, I am not alone" he left the system open and headed for cover, whoever or whatever was stalking him would now know they had lost the element of surprise. Ned made sure to keep the console in his view so he could see when Rance was finished and he waited for whatever would happen next.