Doom and Boom

Posted on 01 Nov 2026 @ 4:38pm by Lieutenant JG Zhivise Silatuyok & Lieutenant Commander Harva Taliborn & Ensign Unknown 'Weirdo'

2,247 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Unity
Location: Near the fighter bay

The Odin was quiet at night. Most of the crew was asleep; those who weren't were minding their own business, doing their own thing. The Gamma shift was on duty, but with the ship docked at Unity station, there wasn't much to do. Still, there hung the darkness in the air of the ship's first officer having been killed recently. Security was doing its best to find the killer, but otherwise things were very calm.

Right until the ship-wide red alert suddenly sounded, the glare of the flashing red lights was nearly blinding to eyes used to shade and the dimmed evening light. Only a moment later, a dull explosion came from the fighter bay, followed by the sound of metal shearing, breaking, and crashing.

Zhiv couldn't sleep, and the lockdown was somewhat lifted. So, here she was, wandering the corridors. Her thoughts roaming, unable to stay on one thing for too long. This happened to her when she couldn't fly for a while. There were only so many times you could run flight simulations in her head.

Turning the corner, she jumped as the corridor was drenched in red, then the explosion. It sent her into the bulkhead, but she braced herself as she hit. "What the hell." Zhiv blurted out, tapping her badge. +taps+ What the hell is going on? +taps+ She asked, calling up to the bridge.

"Unknown. Sensors registered a heavy weapon discharge in the fighter bay followed by an explosion, but the sensor grid is barely functioning," came the response. "A team is underway, led by Commander Taliborn. If you are nearby, please go and see if there's anything you can do to help in case there are injured."

+taps+ On my way. +taps+ Zhiv said, tapping her badge again as she closed the communique before moving towards the fighter bay. She kept an eye out for the commander and any wounded.

As she moved, she stopped by a terminal real quick and quickly found a first aid kit, figuring having it couldn't hurt.

As Zhiv approached the fighter bay, a shadowy figure came out, coughing, stumbling a bit. An officer wearing engineering yellow. As the corridor lights flickered and an orange glow emanated from the fighter bay, the figure's details were obscured, but the moment they noticed Zhiv, they turned and ran the other way, disappearing around a corner.

The fighter bay was a mess, with one fighter torn in two pieces and fire glowing from the wreckage, though the sprinkler system had activated to suppress it. Part of the wall opposite the wrecked fighter was glowing, melted steel solidifying as the glow dulled. The fighter belonged to Kat Walker, the cuboid crystalline AI core visible in the cockpit.

"Wai...wai...!" *Zhiv tried to call out to the man coming out of the shadows before he darted away. Just as she was about to sprint after the man, she spotted Kat's fighter and the core.

"Shit, no, no, no." She said, rushing forward. +taps+ Commander Harva, I need help. Kat, I mean, Lieutenant Walker has been badly damaged by the explosion." Zhiv said, not even mentioning the man; honestly, she completely forgot about him.

"On my way," Harva's deep resonance rumbled through the comm badge.

The fighter was destroyed, the airframe a loss. An explosion had torn it in two. The core itself was deactivated; the faint blue glow that normally signified life was extinguished, as if the AI were turned off or in sleep mode. The cockpit, heavily modified to accept the core, seemed mostly intact, though even in the flickering lights. Even the canopy glass was still in one piece, with the massive damage confined to the middle of the airframe, behind the cockpit's armored bulkhead. The sprinklers managed to extinguish the fire, leaving just the tangled, smoking wreckage,

Zhiv looked around, knowing that the medical tricorder would be useless. Coughing, as there was still a lot of smoke. "Come on, Zhiv, think, think!" She looked around, hoping to find something she could use to at least get a reading on Kat.

And then she spotted it: a PaDD rushing over. She grabbed it, and luckily it had a cable that would let her run a diagnostic, hoping to have more information for Harva when he arrived.

The PaDD started its diagnostic ... 2% ... 4% ... 6% - at least the fact that it was progressing steadily meant that there was something there, something responding.

Heavy footfalls announced Commander Taliborn's arrival, flanked by a few securitymen and two medics, though seeing no injuries made the medics relax. "Lieutenant Silatuyok, report," Harva said, hurrying over to the wreckage.

Zhiv took a deep breath before starting. "Ensign Walker is severely damaged by the explosion, but it appears her core is intact. I have started a diagnostic. But...," Zhiv stopped as she remembered something.

"A man, a uh...a man came out of the bay, and uh...he saw me and then ran off." Zhiv sputtered out.

Harva immediately tapped his comm badge. "Taliborn to bridge. The ship goes on full and complete lockdown immediately. No shuttles, nobody uses the umbilicals, and no transports unless I give express permission. Post security teams at all exits." his voice and expression were stern, a scowl on his features, before he turned back to Zhiv. "What can you remember about him? Any details? Uniform, hair, any marks we can recognize him by?"

"Yellow, an engineering uniform. Th that is about it, I I am sorry, it happened so fast." She stammered.

"It's ok. Take a breath," Harva spoke more calmly now, his low bass voice rumbling as he placed a strong hand on Zhiv's shoulder for a moment. He cast his gaze on the fighter wreckage, specifically the cockpit area. "Her core seems... undamaged. The power and support systems are gone, but we can rebuild those. As long as the core is intact, we can bring her back." Then he noticed the damaged wall opposite Kat's fighter and furrowed his brows, heading over there. "Lieutenant, what d'you think caused this? What could've happened here?"

"Here," Zhiv said, handing the PaDD to one of the people who came with Harva.

Zhiv looked at it. "Wha...I think it was a plasma-based blast; I mean, look at the edges." She said, pointing around the blast. "But it looks like a shape charge...like they only wanted to destroy something instead of the bay?" Zhib suggested.

Harva shook his head a bit. "The red alert activated before the explosion, by some seconds. Look, there," the Sirran motioned at the edge of the damage. "This looks like pulse phaser cannon fire. A low-yield shot. Looks like it came from Ensign Walker's fighter. That would instantly set off a red alert. But why would the Ensign fire a shot inside the bay? Unless she did it to set off a red alert. But why fire a weapon instead of just using comms? Unless she couldn't. Back to the wreck, let's see if there's anything left of her communication suite. But I'm starting to puzzle together what could've happened."

"What if something changed her sensors? Um, like instead of detecting something and alerting the ship, her sensors switched to 'KILL'. It detects something, and she just fired based on her programming that got changed?" Zhiv suggested as she walked back to the wreckage.

The newest addition to the security team arrived at a run. He hadn't been asleep, as people might easily think given the time of night, but had been working - still - on that other investigation. Several leads pointed in one direction: an action by a group of traditionally minded Sal'kiirans. He doubted they were the actual culprits; rather, he felt they'd been picked as a convenient target, but he still needed to check it out. Not just because he could be wrong, but because following this might yield more information about the real culprits should he be right. So once again he was, as the saying went, burning the midnight oil. Good thing his species (whatever they were) or he himself required little sleep.

Unfortunately, distance was a thing, and side-to-side transports were heavily restricted during a red alert. So he'd been sprinting through the ship as soon as the lights changed and the alarms blared, passing several other running people on the way down.

"Commander," he said, nodding to Harva and brushing back some curls that had escaped his braid and tried to form their usual halo around his head. Another nod and a brief wave acknowledged the others who had gathered here. "What'd you find thus far?" He was already looking around, taking in everything with his keen eyes. Once again, as was often the case these days, the grin was absent from his face.

"Ensign," Harva glanced at the new arrival before turning his attention back to the scene at hand. The sprinklers had stopped by now, leaving puddles of water on the floor plating, but at least all the fires were out, leaving Kat's wreck front and center. "So, in chronological order. We detected a blip in the sensor grid here. Then a red alert sounded, followed a few seconds later by an explosion, the result of which you can see here. Lieutenant Silatuyok was the first on scene; she reports seeing an officer in Engineering yellow fleeing the scene. I arrived a moment later with these two security officers. After I got the report that the Lieutenant saw a suspect fleeing the scene, I immediately put the ship on full lockdown; nobody enters or leaves without going through me. These two gentlemen - " he motioned at the two securitymen who had accompanied him, " - will remain here to secure the fighter bay in case - .... well, in case something else happens."

"Alright." He gave a brisk nod as he walked over to Kat. He studied her with a grim expression, but kept talking, his mind, once again, running several parallel streams of thought. "Transporter logs need to be checked in case someone beamed out of Odin in the last couple of minutes, between Zhiv seeing the running person and you calling the lockdown. Cameras inside the hallways and other areas. Including this bay. I'll make some calls. What else?"

"I've got a gut feeling this is related to Petrova, and I've come to trust my gut feelings. That means you're in charge. The Lieutenant here has a theory about what happened here, as do I; feel free to ask us about those if you want. Otherwise, you're free to take it from here," Harva replied in his sonorous bass voice.

"By all means, do share. Also, anything you can share about that gut feeling is welcome." His own gut told him much the same. Of course, it was easy to assume that two calamities had to be related, but he felt it was more than that. Still, he cautioned himself against being too restrictive.

"I suggested what if Kat's sensors changed. Like if her 'Friendly or Foe' where switched?" Zhiv said with a shrug as she spoke of the IFF system (I think that is what that system is called).

"Perhaps, but that doesn't really explain the man fleeing the scene. Or the explosion," Harva flicked an ear, glancing from the wreckage to Zhiv to Weirdo. "Plus there's my gut feeling, that the fleeing man is related to Petrova. I think he came here to sabotage the Ensign and in a panic she did the only thing she could think of to call for help and discharged a phaser cannon into the wall, triggering a ship-wide red alert." Beat. "Doesn't explain why she didn't just comm someone. But, I suppose a technical analysis of the wreckage might yield some answers. And she might be able to tell us directly if we can get her up and running again."

"...true, what if one of Kat's system overload and that was the explosion, and the man fleeing the scene was the one that caused the overload?" Zhiv suggested. She was a pilot, this was way out of her expertise, if they needed someone to pilot a crazily damaged shuttle she could do that no problem.

"We can speculate until we're blue in the face, but that won't get us any further." There were far too many 'what if's' for his taste. Again, far too many questions and not nearly enough answers. If all those questions could be stacked into a pile, they'd form a nice hill by now. "Commander, can you arrange for the technical analysis and getting Kat fixed? Lieutenant, is this something you can help with? Meanwhile, I'll ask my collegues to hunt for our running man.

Harva flicked an ear, glancing over to the wreckage of the fighter. "Well, considering she's a key witness in an attempted murder, getting her online enough to answer questions is my number one priority," his basso profondo rumbled.

"Um, yeah I can help, mainly with her nav/helm systems and some with her thrusters and impulse. Outside of that I am bit out of my depth." Zhiv said simply, and that was the truth.

Well, at least now there was something they could actually do. "Then I hope you two can take care of her." Regardless of whether this was connected with the murder investigation, it wouldn't do to outright order two people who both outranked him around. "If you need me for anything else, let me know."

 

RSS Feed