Distant Events and a Dying Star

Posted on Mon Sep 6, 2021 @ 1:41pm by Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit

1,176 words; about a 6 minute read

After returning to the ship, upon reaching the bridge Fleet Captain Kennit found a number of reports had come in from the Alpha Quadrant. While waiting for a means of accessing the Vaadwaur Underspace safely to be identified, Kennit used the time to catch up on events. Latelynew updates and fleet reports had been few and far between. The events which transpired back in the Alpha Quadrant often seemed to be of little to no importance to the Federation colonies and outposts which had been established in the Delta Quadrant 75,000 light years from Earth. News reports came through multiple means, carried by inbound freighters and ships, sent via transmission at scheduled intervals.

At times, it was apparent that not everything was deemed of enough note to merit being included in the scheduled updates which were sent. The reasons for this selective sharing of news was varied, everything from the person who was composing the message just didn't care, to orders from higher ups who expressly ordered some information be left out.

One such report had been deliberately kept from reaching the Delta Quadrant for some time though now, the first whispers of rumor could not longer be contained, and the truth was deemed necessary if only to maintain some semblance of control over the rapidly degenerating situation.

Romulan Academicians had first noticed the problems with their sun nearly nine years prior. As was the Romulan way, the initial rise concern had been kept quiet while further tests had been quietly but, urgently conducted to confirm the initial findings of the Academy of Sciences. The Romulan star had been begun behaving in unusual ways, a serious increase in solar activity. Massive flares and coronal mass ejections on a scale never recorded in all the long centuries of the Romulan Star Empire. Detailed analysis of data collected by highly advanced solar probes determined the unthinkable. The Romulan star was entering its final death throes unexpectedly, millions of years before all expectation, and would tear itself apart in a massive supernova in the very near future. The exact time frame remaining could not be estimated, the ongoing study of the dying sun revealed changes at an unprecedented rate taking place within the stars deep core.

Captain.. now Admiral Jean-Luc Picard had been placed in command of a massive humanitarian effort following a direct request from the Romulan Star Empire to assist in evacuating civilians from the many colony worlds which faced destruction when the star did explode, including Romulus itself.

Captain Worf was now in command of the Enterprise, and Commander Geordi La Forge had been transferred to Utopia Planetia Shipyards where he was overseeing the refit and construction of additional starships to aid in the evacuation of almost one billion Romulan civilians from within the death zone.

Reports from Cmdr. La Forge indicated that while work was progressing, workers and staff at the shipyard were not happy. La Forge reported that his staff reported back to him a number of comments about the impossible task to accomplish in such short time, as well as considerable unrest and low morale at being forced to drop other projects to focus all necessary resources on the Romulan crisis. Many workers had been overheard expressing the opinion that this was a waste of time and resources . Why spend so much time and effort on Romulans?

It was highly likely that this unexpected anti-Romulan sentiment which was spreading throughout the Federation worlds within the Alpha Quadrant which had prompted the Federation Council, and Starfleet Command to do all they could to confine the news to the Alpha Quadrant for as long as possible. It was a daunting enough undertaking as it was, without further complications being added from the personnel now working within the Delta Quadrant which was quite a complicated matter in and of itself!

La Forge’s second in command was Commander Estella MacKenzie who had engaged the services of Bruce Maddox at the Daystrom Institute to build an advanced series of synthetics capable of doing some of the more detailed work to create sensitive components which could not be build by automated systems, thus were built by human hands, required for complicated systems aboard Federation ships and was making some progress. Maddox working with a Dr. Agnes Jurarti had successfully created a line of synthetics which were proving successful at the necessary tasks. They hoped to soon have a full complement of synthetics working at the shipyard which should greatly speed up production.

To make matters worse, a recent paper published by the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge by a respected researcher named Dr. Amal Safadi contained more bad news. Analysis of recent data from Federation sensor platforms which were focused on the Romulan star indicated that the supernova was going to happen sooner and be a far bigger blast than the data shared by the Romulans originally indicated. Another researcher named Elena Richter, along with the Group Director Durnyam Bekri had confirmed her analysis. Also, Dr. Safadi had expressed her belief that the pending supernova was not of natural origin, though she had not been willing (or perhaps, allowed) to speculate on an alternate cause at the time of the interview.

Needless to say, the Romulans had not responded in a positive fashion to the papers publication. Councilor Olivia Quest, the elected representative of a planet named Estelan, near the neutral zone was also ruffling feathers among other colony worlds near the zone. She was speaking quite a bit about the resources being expended in aid to the Romulan evacuation while Federation worlds with needs for equipment and supplies were effectively being ignored. A spaceport at Nytis was in need of upgrades. Promised transporter links between the two hemispheres of B’rq had not been delivered. Planned terraforming of 3 moons orbiting t’Lottie had stalled. To name just a few of the Councilor’s complaints.

The report indicated that there had been an incident during the evacuation of Nimbus III, resulting in the unfortunate deaths of an unknown number of Romulan civilians who had resisted being forced to leave by the Tal Shiar. Grainy video of the event showed a large number of bodies strewn about the streets as Tal Shiar agents escorted survivors away from the village to waiting shuttles for evacuation.

While the exact timing of the star's demise was impossible to determine, it was clear that events within the Alpha Quadrant were changing rapidly.

While some of the reports contained in the messages she’d received were not meant for the crew, this one the Captain knew needed to be made public for all to read and be aware of. Flagging the report, she extracted it from the main body of the larger file it had been attached to and then placed it into the queue for all crew to read. The pending destruction of the Romulan star was an event which would have serious consequences not just within the Romulan Star Empire, but throughout the Al pha Quadrant if not the galaxy in coming years.

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