Bombshell

Posted on Mon 16th Mar, 2026 @ 2:24pm by Captain Gordon Francis & Commander Mindo & Commander Heriah Rex & Lieutenant Commander Azusa Nakano & Commander Anslo Tol & Commander Damion Ildaran

2,510 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: [MAIN] From The Ashes
Location: Interrogation room
Timeline: Right after "What to Do With Anslo Tol"

-Start-

Anslo had been unceremoniously dumped into an interrogation room. Things were not going well to say the least. How did the Captain of the station not know already of the plot to destroy the station? Being feisty and pushing back was his style with H'tek, but Captain Francis was a different creature. Tol gave him a sensation and Anslo steadied his mind, concluding he had indeed made errors in diplomacy. Having been certain he could leverage information for asylum, it was evident that was a wrong move. Tol was wise and Anslo felt the echoes of a voice, but the iron grip of impression.

"To the Officers on the other side of that mirror, I am not your enemy, listen to me closely. Three weeks ago H'tek gave this device to me for this very mission. I declined the mission, and tried to warn you all by sending a message. I was caught, given to the Trill who brought me here, where I again told your commander of the threat, but my pursuers delayed further talk of it. I do not know if the device has been implanted. I only know of the device by reputation. It's a trickle feed particle containment unit, no computer, just a special battery and few moving parts. Once the battery is full an internal component releases a strangelet converting the energies within to something called strange matter and beginning a cascade reaction. Search your Fusion Core, EPS junctions, Anitmatter reactors even could house it. I am not bargaining for my life or my freedom, I have only ever sought to come home, and my time with H'tek was done the moment he asked me to destroy this station. I beg of you to listen. Power down immediately, this isn't a ploy to lower defenses, I am Starfleet... Please."

On the other side of the reflective glass surface Geri scoffed, "Oh well if he says this isn't a plot then sure, power it all down then."

"Of course it's a plot," Captain Francis said, looking through the one-way mirror. "But I'm convinced he's telling the truth." He sighed, then tapped his communicator. "Francis to Rex. Have you begun evacuation procedures? We may need a partial shutdown of the station and I need a time table."

=^="Evacuations are underway,"=^= her voice returned over Frank's commbadge. =^="I had to activate civilian law enforcement in the Garden Sector to help. It took no time at all for doomsday theories to explode among the population. We had a few fights and looting going on, but that has been put down. Things are more orderly now, with but a few attempting to refuse evac."=^=

"Doomsday theories exploding" was typical Rex phrasing, thought Francis. "Get them out, Rex. Use what means you can. I don't want a single innocent on my conscience."

=^="Aye, Sir,"=^= she said. =^="Rex out."=^=

He tapped his badge again. "Mr. Mindo, give me the skivvy on finding the bomb."

=^=The good news is we found it," came Mindo's voice. "Whoever planted it had little imagination. It's in a Jefferies tube outside main engineering, connected to an electrical conduit. I know this type of explosive, but I've never disarmed one myself. It's an Armageddon bomb. It will destroy not just the station, but this sector of space. It uses the form of matter Section 31 was experimenting with in the Delavi Expanse. Probably came from there."

Francis looked at Geri. "The Pandora encountered the material in the Delavi Expanse," he explained. "They called it black matter, but there's other names for it. It's basically the nightmare version of regular matter."

"Mr. Mindo, can you neutralize it?" Francis barked.

There was a delayed silence before Mindo replied, "Sort of."

"What the hell does that mean, Mr. Mindo?" Francis said, keeping his voice level, but with increasing impatience.

=^=It means I can neutralize the black matter, but can't diffuse the bomb." There was a silence in the room until Mindo said, "Sir?"

"How bad?" Francis asked, doing his best to remain calm. There was quiet again.

=^=Sir, we need everyone off the station immediately," Mindo said, his voice very grave. "An engineering team is working on ejecting the core. If they succeed, the blast won't destroy everything. Parts of the station should still be intact, but all station functions will be taken out. I don't know when it's supposed to go off. Digital timers are only in movies. If we are going to do this, we have to start right now. It'll take about fifteen minutes, I might be able to do it in ten."

Francis sighed and looked back through the window at Tol. "An hour ago I just wanted a Ding-dong and a cup of coffee," he said quietly. Turning to Commander Severide, he calmly said, "We have ten minutes. Get out now, Geri. Take the security detail and Mr. Tol with you. I'm going to assist with evacuation."

=/\= Lt. Kell to Captain Francis... Sir there is a list as long as my arm of reason we cant eject the core, especially within fifteen minutes and, especially with an explosive attached. I have an alternative plan of action... we power down the station cold, isolating the device with containment fields and keeping it undisturbed. Then we hook up the Ticonderoga to the auxiliary grid by exposing it to space and directly linking the vitals to its own Fusion Core, a third the capacity but enough to power a few systems via bypassing the mains. If we starve it of enough charge it won't go off, but we need to power down IMMEDIATELY. They can keep our containment fields and vital systems powered, but sir that's a one way trip for the Ticonderoga."

Mindo responded next. "Captain, ejecting the core is safe and can be done in a few minutes. As I said, the explosive is not attached to it, but rather a conduit nearby, and the station will maintain auxiliary power long enough for a full evacuation. That said, Lieutenant Kell's plan is sound if we power down right now. It's unorthodox and risky, and she's right when she says it's a one-way trip for the Ticonderoga, but if it works it guarantees the matter won't detonate and obliterate all life in this sector."

=/\= Not trying argue Commander, but evacuations arent the only drain on batteries once we lose mains. Containment fields around the device will drain us just as fast."

Heriah was listening in while spearheading the evacuation. The captain did not want innocents on his conscience and she made sure he shan't as she gave Security the go-ahead to stun any protestors, looters, or those refusing evac. They were dragged away to their evac vessels. All the while, she felt this was one of the times she was glad she was not the captain. Frank had two good ideas to choose from and could only choose one.

Paul, meanwhile, was keeping tabs on evacuation of the aquatic crew and the patients and staff in Sickbay. Everyone who could get into a lifeboat was getting into one--but dolphins and patients all came with their own idiosyncrasies, and 30 minutes was a dreadfully short time to get them moved off-station. He consulted with the Harbormaster, who assured him that docked guest ships were undocking and moving out.

Francis sighed. There were two knowledgeable, competent, able officers with two radically different ideas, both of which contained a lot of risks, with the potential for disaster far more than just cataclysmic.

Lieutenant Kell had accomplished quite a lot during her brief time in Starfleet. She was very young, with great ambition and fresh ideas, and a track record unmatched by anyone with the same amount of service in Starfleet. Francis liked and respected her a lot. Even Commander Mindo admitted her idea to power down was sound. And Francis knew enough of the Ticonderoga that the likelihood of success was better than most other ships at their disposal, even if they would still lose the Ticonderoga.

Commander Mindo had been a Starfleet engineer for almost a decade longer than Kell, with impressive abilities and passion for finding out how things worked. His knowledge of warp theory and its various technological advancements over the last three hundred years meant he probably knew how to safely eject the core. He also had prior experience with black matter, and recognized the type of explosive being used, which made the chances of the weapon being neutralized all the better, even if he had never deactivated a device like that before.

Captain Francis had been around longer than both combined, and knew when he could trust a hunch... and he had a hunch.

"Commander Mindo," he barked. "Get out of dodge and assist Commander Rex with evacuation. I need you to be my Security Chief right now. Tell the engineering crew to prepare for station shutdown and coordinate with Lieutenant Kell on how to proceed. I don't have time to explain, just got a hunch."

"You're the Captain," Mindo said with enthusiasm. Francis knew the man well enough to not have an ego over such things.

"Lieutenant Kell, you're up. How would you like to proceed?" Francis asked, exiting the room.

=/\="Thank you sir, sending to Ticonderoga to move, and activating lower power protocols with Azusa. Powering down the Fusion core will stop the timer altogether in theory, but no ship in our vicinity can keep us powered without system failures. Containment and Life support will drain our reserves in approximately eight to twelve hours on their own. We're moving people to habitat ring, shutting down non essentials, including life support in non occupied areas its outlined in your command brief now sir. Science teams will need to work on the containment unit, but everything we do drains us faster. We can swap to battery mains in ten minutes, and that should stop the countdown in theory, giving us maybe eight to ten hours to hook up the Ticonderoga without suffering total power loss on station, including containment."

=^="Sufai,"=^= came Alidade's voice over her commbadge. =^="If you were to open all the docking ports, nearest to Engineering, to the vacuum of Space Dock after exposing all the power conduits...of course everyone within five decks will have to clear out...I can aim the Thunderchild's array dish at the exposed conduits, beaming power directly to the starbase. That can buy you 30.1678 minutes more time. This will of course melt all the panels in those five decks and render the area useless until repairs can be made."=^=

Sufai ran her mental blueprints of the station and approved, those areas were already empty of personnel. That also gave her another idea, "Alidade that's brilliant, and I raise you one more. We can use our sensor arrays to receive additional power, I'll create a task force of runabouts to allocate Warp power to phase to the main deflector. You can coordinate them as well, since our main computer is offline youre the only hope to coordinate that. That'll buy us more time but likely burn out or sensor array... fifty two minutes or so with Alidades beam as well... We are still in a position to potentially lose power before evacuations complete though-"

=0="This is Sepp Agandar, commander of Ticonderoga Station. I have received the mission brief, and analyzed it with my team. If I may suggest to save time... If we shear the star cradle to save time on redeployment we can move now. Given the urgency of the situation, I have mobilized all work crews to pilot available work craft and to begin dismantling the Core Housing for direct linkage in flight to avoid any other delay. We will be in position and ready within the hour, work will take approximately five more to complete before we can safely restore emergency power."

Sufai tapped her badge, doing the math, "Captain Francis... Once we shut down main power, auxiliary has capacity for twelve hours of emergency power only. Containment of the device and evacuations, plus life support brings us to eight hours, with Thunderchild and the runabouts we can buy back an hour but it will burn out most of the relays after that hour of sustained energizing. Ticonderoga states they can restore emergency power to systems in six, if nothing goes wrong. That gives us some wiggle room if we practice extreme energy conservation. Should we proceed?"

Francis grimaced and wondered how much of that was Engineering over-estimation and actual fact. Just to see, he tapped his badge. "Mr. Mindo, did you hear that?"

"I did," said Mindo, glad he'd kept the channel open as he literally flew through the corridors helping people evacuate. "Kell's calculations are correct, and that window of time will be barely enough to get a complete evacuation, provided the bomb doesn't detonate prior to that."

It was then that Azusa's voice from main engineering came over the comm. =A="Captain. Is this right sir? You want to shut down the entire power grid? What's going on?"=A= the young engineer asked.

Francis vaguely recognized the voice, belonging to the pregnant Operations officer. "Lieutenant, please get to your evacuation station. We're going to turn off main power in hopes of preventing a cataclysmic explosion."

Francis had reached his Ready Room and was now at his terminal, downloading his files and reports to a PADD. He also grabbed the miniature holo of Francis and his family thirty years ago on vacation. The trip had been a disaster, but the holo was proof that for one tiny moment, they were together and smiling. He decided to forgo going back to his quarters. There was nothing he needed there and already the clock was counting down to shut-down, with some kind of explosion soon to follow. One that would take either a great part of the station with it, or the entire sector.

Stepping out, Francis surveyed the now-empty space that had been Center Operations, hoping that he could return soon; that the damage would be reparable. Francis smiled a little. Up until now, he hadn't realized how much of a home Starbase 109 had been in the year in which he'd been there. He pontificated as to what the future would bring... for the station, the crew, and everyone else who made up this giant city in space. Assuming the blast didn't cause sector-wide armageddon, there was a good chance 109 would be rebuilt in less than a year, with the station returning to operation in just a few months. Even prior to all of this there had been several plans for renovations. Francis wondered what crazy upgrades the place would receive.

Shoving all of that aside, the Captain made his way out to join his crew in aiding in the evacuation. He was confident they would make it out. A good amount of civilians were already evacuated and, he hoped, the crew would be as well in a few hours.

Francis tapped his badge. "Lieutenant Kell, prepare to execute shutdown procedures."

-To Be Concluded-

 

RSS Feed