Almost reflexively, and with superb accuracy, the Chief of Security fired a shot at a vulnerable area near the humanoid’s right shoulder, causing him to twist and throw the explosives away from the warp core. Lucky shot, he thought. Fortunately for everyone on the Excelsior, the alien humanoid missed the core, but the explosives ended up sticking onto all different areas around engineering. The Chief may have prevented a breach, but the situation was hardly ideal.
The Chief had no choice. Move. The beads swelled to their limits in size and began to vibrate violently. Even if the explosives weren’t on the warp core directly, the core could still suffer from serious collateral damage and endanger the ship. If any of the antimatter came into contact with normal matter…he thought to himself.
“Computer, activate a force field around the warp core!” the Chief yelled.
The beads exploded all at once and the explosions shattered most of engineering, and almost took the warp core with it. The Chief felt the intense heat of the explosion as he cowered for cover, and a large, unavoidable piece of debris smashed the side of his head. He fell to floor in an instant. All he could see from the ground was the debris that littered the floor, and the fire that enveloped the entire engineering section. The acrid smoke that filled the air burned his eyes, and sounds of the alarm came loudly from all directions. There must have been something wrong with the computer, because under normal circumstances the computer would have detected the fire and taken measures to contain it.
In the Chief’s last moment of consciousness, all he could think was how there was no one left alive in engineering to fix it.
