Star Trek Discovery: Penitent's Walk

V: Catastrophe

Lynne Lucero was in the throes of a nightmare when the room shifted around her. It was a familiar one: she was on the bridge of the USS Cabot—in her dream it wasn't the cramped cozy bridge of her little science vessel, but as massive and expansive as a banquet hall—in the midst of some sort of alien attack. She didn't know who was attacking; their ships were unfamiliar and shaped like great insects. The ship shuddered and the sparks and wreckage rained down from the ceiling onto the sprawling bridge. Lucero shouted orders to her crew, but they were either too far away to hear her or they ignored her completely. She needed to know who was firing on them, needed to see if they could establish communications before there was further loss of life, but the comm officer didn't acknowledge her orders, even when she stood behind him screamed them at him. He didn't seem to notice her at all.

She kept shouting at him as the largest ship—some kind of flagship or dreadnaught—loomed in the viewscreen, and suddenly a mechanical pincer exploded through the deck, tearing through the deck plates as if they were tissue paper, and tearing a young yeoman in half. Lucero screamed in terror and despair at the sight of the woman's lifeless eyes as her mangled torso thumped on the ruined deck.

The ship was being torn apart around her, and still no one responded to her.

And then she was awake, her eyes snapping open at the flood of adrenaline into her system, as her senses gradually keyed in on the unfamiliar phenomena that had pulled her from sleep.

The station was moving. No, it was more than moving it was sliding. And that was very, very bad. Lucero was well-versed in the specs of Hazarian Station and knew that it had massive gravity generators and internal dampeners. Nothing short of a photon torpedo barrage should have been able to disrupt the artificial equilibrium of the station. Whatever was happening now was nothing short of massive. Massive and catastrophic.

"Lights!" She called out as she jumped out of bed yanked a fresh uniform out of the closet. "Computer, status report! Why are we moving?"

"Hello. It appears that Hazarian Station's gravitic stabilizers are offline. Thank you for asking."

Lucero groaned as she struggled into her uniform (who the hell in Starfleet was designing these things and why did they make so damn tight?). "Computer, eliminate politeness subroutines. What caused the gravitic stabilizers to fail?"

"Unable to ascertain based upon existing data."

"Computer, was there an increase in ionic jetsam from the main star in the past six hours?" She asked as she pulled on her boots.

"Affirmative. Ionic emissions increased by 674% approximately 72 minutes ago."

"Fuck," she whispered. "Did the shields compensate?"

"Shields operated within normal scheduled parameters."

"Goddamn you, Z'Dar," she snarled and ran for the Ops Center. The corridors of Hazarian Station were starting to fill with guests and residents slowly emerging from their suites, looking about confusedly, some rubbing the sleep from their eyes, some alert and panicked.

"Get inside!" Lucero ordered. "Get inside and stay in the center of the room!" Hazarian Station had wardens who should have been managing the resident's safety, getting accountability of everyone aboard and giving them instructions. Where the hell where they?

When she burst through the doors of the Ops Center, she found herself rushing into a hive of activity. Except that it was all wrong. Rather than work furiously at their consoles, the Zerothian staff was rushing around the room, gathering things up.