Implosion (Part 2 of 3)

Posted on 18 Jan 2026 @ 8:56pm by Commander Morgan Tarin & Commander Allyndra illm Warraquim & Lieutenant JG Serran & Lieutenant JG Sofie Ullswater & Lieutenant JG Nusien & Ensign Amanda Turell & Kivirn

2,725 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 21 - Helix
Location: Enus Station - Level 4, Main Control Room
Timeline: MD 07, 1319 hrs

Previously, on Implosion (Part 1)...

She turned. "Team, whoever you can spare, we need to contact the ship. Whatever it takes." She shook her head. "I am sorry, but as of this moment, I am going to require that this facility be abandoned until we can make a further investigation." She turned to Ullswater. "Lieutenant Ullswater, see if you can get main or auxiliary power back on."

"Aye, sir," A short distance off from that conversation, Ullswater was still struggling to make anything out of the data arrayed on the screen in front of her. It didn't help that in the snippets she heard of the conversation being carried out between the Commander and the base's lead researcher she kept hearing something: maybe it was just anxiety from the two civilians or maybe something else. She needed another set of eyes, or maybe ears, or maybe just a whole new body at this point. Glancing over her shoulder she saw Turell a short way off and called over to her "Ensign Turell, could I grab you for a moment?"

And Now, the Continuation...

[ON]

Amanda looked up from her busywork as someone called her name. Seeing it was Sofie she headed over to her friend. "Everything ok, Lieutenant?"

Shuffling closer to the ensign Sofie spoke in a hushed voice "You have a better eye for this than me. Are any of the scientists armed?"

"I don't see any," Amanda replied. "But you can fit a Type I almost anywhere; this is a Starfleet facility, there will be a couple of small weapons lockers in critical locations."

"Of course, yes." Ullswater nodded to herself not taking her eyes of the display in front of her. The words danced in her eyes to the point of unintelligibility; she couldn't focus, everything felt like it was slightly distant and not quite real. She hated herself because for she knew she needed help and there are few things Ullswater hated more than asking for help. "You know, ensign, I think last time the two of us properly spoke was when you shot me. Not your fault, you were just doing your job..."

"Ensign," now the lieutenant was speaking very quietly, barely above a whisper, so that just Amanda could hear "I'm struggling to read the words on the display. Could you find and activate auxiliary power."

"Are you alright?" Amanda asked just as quietly. "Want me to call Nusien over?"

"I want you to find and activate auxiliary power." Ullswater scrunched her eyes shut and rubbed her forehead with one hand, the headache was only getting worse.

"Alright." Amanda looked at the panel, her engineering skills were limited at best, more suited to blowing stuff up than fixing them. "Auxiliary generators.... are." She tapped a few buttons. "...Online."

Nusien rose to his full height which was slightly awkward for a three legged individual to rise from a kneeling position. "I am pleased to report that everyone is in good health. It seems that there have been no ill effects medically speaking."

Meanwhile, in a nearby science alcove, Guy and Kivirn appeared engaged in a private and passionate debate about...something. Their low-volumed speech wasn't prolific enough to be overheard by the Galileo officers but the contents of their discussion appeared to make at least one of them very animated.

"...Kivirn, you're in charge but we can't just leave because they're ordering us to," Guy adamantly whispered. "Think about all the research we've collected and our project's progress - this discovery could change the Federation and known science all for the better!" His head subtly gestured to the slowly-rotating holographic double helix display at the center of the room. "If they make us evacuate, how long until we're allowed to return? A year? Three? Five? Never? If we leave now...all of this is lost."

"And what? Did you think that what you said helped us?" Kivirn pushed himself right into the taller scientist's personal space, the two of their faces now uncomfortably close he kept talking in a hushed but forceful tone "No one here is more committed to staying that me, no one is more committed to this mission than me. So you need to trust me and my judgement and stop talking to them like they're here to help us. Do you understand, Guy? Downing is dead, Binea too. There's no one left to protect you but me so get in line or I will put you back in line."

Guy's head lowered, and his gaze shifted to the ground. His posture weakened under the reprimand from the senior scientist, then he finally looked back up to Kivirn after a moment of personal reflection. "Sorry...I was just - because of Galileo here now..." He reconsidered his words with a shake of his head, then finally righted himself and addressed his superior's directive in the proper way. "It's your station now, Kivirn. Just tell me what to do. I...miss Binea."

"Just let me do the talking and keep calm." Satisfied that the message had been properly conveyed Kivirn pulled back slightly out of Guy's space and attempted a more comforting tone "We all miss her. Don't worry, I'll look after you."

Allyndra felt very uncomfortable. She wasn't sure what it was. Being in an enclosed space, knowing there was meters and meters of water over her head was part of it, but the general atmosphere and the way the rest acted. She moved toward Turell. As she did so, she spread her wings slightly and shifted her shoulders as though relieving a muscle ache. "Ensign Turell, be prepared. I have a bad feeling."

"Aye Sir." Amanda immediately grabbed the rifle that she'd previously slung over her shoulder with no threat having emerged, she looked around for the best spot to stand where she could observe as many of the scientists as possible. Finding a spot that looked good she headed there standing with her back almost against the bulkhead.

Guy's blue eyes horrifically widened when he spotted the tall gold-collared officer from Galileo take her large weapon from her shoulder and hold it in her hands, then walk to a nearby wall while staring at all of them. His hand reached out and tugged at Kivirn's arm. "Look at that one...they're going to kill us!" he frantically whispered.

"Let go of my arm, Guy. I asked you to keep calm." Clearly his message has not been as conveyed as strongly as Kivirn had thought. Could he really blame Guy though? It did look distinctly like the security officer was positioning herself to shoot them. With a stern look to Guy he took a step backwards, pulling away from the other scientist's grip. "I will talk to them. They're not going to kill us and neither are they going to make us leave. Just let go of my arm."

The civilian scientist released his hand from his comrade then retreated into the shadows behind him, as if the other man was a human shield. He and Kivirn had never formed any lasting semblance of deep friendship over the many months they'd been stationed in the underwater facility, but he respected the man. More so, Guy respected his work and research ethics. But fear was a hard monolith to overcome. "...They're about to bring auxiliary power back online..." he whispered with monumental doubts flooding his frontal cortex about what this Starfleet interaction would produce.

"Any luck with contacting the Galileo?" Allyndra turned around again.

"No, ma'am. I can try again, but I'm not certain I will be successful. There is an EMP-dampening field. Communications will be at best intermittent."

Then he tried again.

/=\"Galileo, this is Lt. Serran with the Away Team. Can you hear me?"/=\

In conjunction with the new sub-aquatic-to-surface communications attempt, the internal lighting within the station's command center suddenly brightened and several dormant consoles came online. Latent research logs and terminals flicked back to life and the facility's emergency lighting ceased while being replaced by active operational illumination.

Unseen on the exterior of the facility, its bright running and emergency lights reactivated, which caused the expansive multi-level research base to once again broadcast its presence to many nearby entities within the deep sea.

The away team's new transmission was as unsuccessful as that of the first, at least upon first attempt. But after a many-second delay, a distinctive feminine yet dry voice replied, "--alileo a..nowledges....ort..atus..."

"Thank the Twins," Allyndra exclaimed. "Can you clear that up?"

"Working on it," Serran said as he made some adjustments. I've attempted to filter out some of the interference."

/=\Galileo, this is Lt. Serran. We are unhurt, but there is an EMP dampener affecting our coms. Can you boost your signal and change frequencies to Bravo Charlie 6?"

Almost half a minute passed before a fragmentary reply returned to speak to the away team. "...Away..eam, ...itch......ight...and..."

Outwardly, Serran was as unflappable as ever. When he spoke, his tone was even, modulated, typically Vulcan. "We aren't getting through.

He made another adjustment to his communicator, boosting the power again.

/=\ "Away Team to Galileo, try switching to Morse Code, if you can understand me." /=\

The tension within the facility was approaching critical mass - a result of the station personnel's enduring stress factors now combined with the Starfleet cadre's unorthodox posture and the threatening stance of its sole Security officer. The civilian scientists in the command chamber continued to nervously glance behind them toward the gold-collared woman holding her rifle who stood against the wall. She was watching them. Preparing to liquidate them, so they perceived. This wasn't the Starfleet they'd spent their professional careers serving under. Enus Station was a scientific observatory station, not a warzone.

Several proximity alarms suddenly sounded across multiple consoles. Guy rushed away from Kivirn's position to the nearest terminal where he rapidly tapped his fingers across the command keys with profound urgency. His head looked up from his fingers as his primary display changed and locked onto the source of the alert. "...Oh no..." He took several steps back from his console, then hurriedly spun around to his new station commander. "Kivirn, it's coming back! The auxiliary power run-up...it's turned us into an underwater beacon!"

Displayed across several of the primary consoles, a singular large contact appeared and was tracked by its red oval designation and projected course, speed and trajectory. It was close and becoming closer by the second, moving rapidly toward Enus Station.

"90 seconds until it reaches us!" called out one of the scientists.

"Sensors are reading a Class 3 - no, Class 4 leviathan!" declared another.

"You idiots. All of you get away from the consoles." Kivirn's previous annoyance at Guy morphed into a contemptuous anger directed at the away team as he walked right up to Warraquim. Without taking his eyes of the commander, he called out instructions to the rest of the scientists, "Go dark, turn off everything. I mean everything."

Within seconds, the lights all flickered out, leaving the room in near total darkness. Where once the room had been quiet, it now rang silent: gone was the chirping of computers and the background hum of the generators and the life support they offered. All that was left was the sound of a dozen souls trapped in a box at the bottom of the sea, hoping that they weren't going to die, listening for their coming doom.

Amanda flicked on the torch mounted to the phaser rifle, its light providing barely enough illumination for half the room.

"Time for us to wait. Anything we could use to detect the creature, it could use to detect us, so we wait." Cutting through the silence of the darkened room like a scalpel, Kivirn spoke again, "You might have killed us, Commander. If you have, we're going to find out in less than a minute. Are you excited?"

"In what way? You've yet to explain what is going on here!" Allyndra demanded.

"You! You're what's going on!" Guy's shaking finger pointed to the winged red-collared commander who seemed too ignorant to understand her mistake. "You just arrived here and decided to turn on the auxiliary power...you didn't ask why it was offline, you just assumed we were...stupid. This is all because of your Starfleet hubris!"

Allyndra wanted to make a retort, but there might, maybe time for that latter. Something was going on here and she didn't like it.

Unseen to those trapped within the facility in the depths of the ocean, a massive creature approached Enus Station then quickly decelerated. Silence and inconspicuousness worked...until it didn't. The interior of the station abruptly shook with violence, and several of the scientists lost their footing and then fell to the deck. The sound of internal metallic creaking saturated the air just before multiple consoles within the command chamber exploded with bright sparks and flame. Physical and electrically-charged debris consumed three bodies manning the operations and engineering stations, rendering them limp and unresponsive on the floor.

Guy had managed to shield his eyes from the EPS surge and ducked down before his own station erupted from the power feedback loop. An aura of thick electrical smoke now threatened to overwhelm the room. His blue eyes squinted under the stinging duress before he returned to another console at the center of the room. His bloody fingers tapped away at the new interface, leaving crimson trails across the display.

"Levels one through four are gone! Complete depressurization, their internal sensors aren't online anymore... It's...it's crushing us with its tentacles!" Guy desperately reported. "Kivirn, we have to get out of here!"

"WARNING," blared an all-too familiar female computer voice. "Structural integrity compromised. Hull breach, Level 1. Level 2. Level 3. Level 4. WARNING," it continued, "Primary systems failure. Secondary systems failure. Life support degraded."

The numerous remaining LCARS displays within the central hub began to flicker and several of them went offline with an accompanying audible tone consistent with systemic power generation failure.

Kivirn didn't waste any time. He was pointing in the direction of an exit to the room and shouting above the noise of a base whose structural integrity was on the brink of collapse "We need to get to the escape submersibles. Three levels down, let's get moving. Do not waste time."

Then turning his gaze specifically on Nusien he called out and pointed in the direction of the three who had been caught in the explosion "Doctor. Help them if you can but we need to be fast." Then with a wave at the rest of the away team he shouted again "Don't wait around, get moving!

Allyndra wanted to bite someone, but she refrained. "Ensign Turell you make sure the rest get to the evacuation point. Come on Nusien, I was a doctor first long before I was in command."

A situation like this was perfect for a trilobed individual. The ability to do three things at once, diagnose three patients etc was invaluable. Nusien nodded in agreement to the Commander and ran toward the first patient. This person was pretty cut and dry as far as triage went. "Looks like second degree plasma burns to the right side. They are going to need treatment. But stable enough to move." He administered a hypospray of tricordrizine to minimize the pain.

While his right hand tended to the first patient, his central hand tended to the second. The next patient was a woman she lay prone and when Nusien rolled her over there was nothing that can be done. She was dead on arrival. He closed her eyes and draped a nearby lab coat over her torso which had been torn open as her organs oozed out. "She's dead Commander."

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

Lieutenant Junior Grade Nusien
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo-A

Cmdr Allyndra illm Warraquim
First Officer
USS Galileo-A

LTJG Serran
Operations Manager
USS Galileo-A

LTJG Sofie Ullswater
Chief Science Officer/Second Officer
USS Galileo-A

ENS Amanda Turell
Security Officer
USS Galileo-A
[PNPC Mimi]

Kivirn
Acting Administrator
Enus Station
[PNPC Ullswater]

Guy
Scientist
Enus Station
[NPC Tarin]

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