Episode 31: “Rapid Descent, Part I”

Written by Swordtail

Published May 16, 2007

Scene 1 - Camera pans around a planet and spies a sign that says “Federation minimum security prison.” A guard signs some papers as Vulcan Guy, aka Logic Man, exits the prison.

Guard - Now, we’re letting you out a few years early, because self-sentencing because of a theme song is now illegal in the Federation. Now get out.

Logic Man - I fail to see the logic in that determination, but I will do my best to follow it. So long, Fred.

Logic Man, now dressed in his white robes and wearing the white mask, walks out into the bright sun of whatever planet the prison is on. He walks down the streets of the city he’s in and happens to glance upward, then back down. He stops when out of the top of his eye he spies a really bright flash. Everyone on the street stops what they’re doing and looks up, to see a huge explosion coming from something in orbit. Debris from some kind of station starts to rain down on the planet, lighting up the sky. Someone obviously knows their astronomy and says:

Random Person - Oh my god! The starbase has been destroyed!

Other Person - But who would do such a thing? Why? Oh, the humanoidity!

A siren goes off and Starfleet security personal beam in from somewhere and start moving people indoors. Logic Man goes up to one of them.

Logic Man - Excuse me, would you be so kind as to tell me what’s going on?

No-Name #1 - Don’t know. The Starbase frantically rang in they had found a bomb, and then a second later the whole facility exploded. Starfleet Command is sending in a starship to help with the investigation. They’ll be here in a few hours. 

Logic Man - A bomb? As in sabotage?

No-Name #1 - Uh... most bombs usually mean sabotage, yes.

Logic Man - This looks like a job for...

He sticks his arm up in the air and looks important.

Logic Man - Logic Man!!!!!!

Dun dun dun... A temporal portal opens an a targ wearing a matching set of robes and mask plops down next to the Vulcan.

Binky - Whee!

Logic Man - And his sidekick, Binky the Mistreated Targ!!!

Opening Credits... sort of. They’ve been slightly changed... Instead of showing the ship flying around, it shows Logic Man and Binky the Mistreated Targ fighting illogic and crime and stuff like that... This is the theme song, which is set to a gutted version of the Spiderman theme song...

(By Swordtail... ahem)

Scene 2 - Earth, Spacedock. Fleet Admiral Spot is in her office, typing on her computer and barking orders at the other admirals who are milling around, all looking serious.

Spot - I don’t care what you think you’ve found, go over every starbase with a fine-toothed comb again. I want every starship out into clear space five minutes ago. Admiral Spot to Ops.

No-Name #2 (comm) - Ops here, go ahead ma’am.

Spot - How it going with the evacuation?

No-Name #2 - 50% are already down on the surface. It’ll take another hour to get the rest out of here. I suggest you go now, ma’am.

Spot - No, I need to coordinate fleet operations and this is the best place to do it. I’ll go with the last batch. Keep me informed. Spot out.

Admiral Ross walks up to her.

Admiral Ross - Ma’am, we’ve sent ships to all the bombing sites. Most are arriving as we speak.

Spot - Any problems?

Ross - Uh... we had to send the USS Celestial to the one near Sigmus V.

Spot - Oh, brilliant. See, it’s stuff like that that makes my tail flick. I’ll contact them.

Spot hops over to her desk communicator and presses a button.

Spot - Fleet Admiral Spot calling USS Celestial, come in Commander Senseless.

Pause...

Senseless (comm) - Celestial here. Go ahead ma’am.

Spot - Okay, I know you’ve never done shit like this before, but this is really serious. Alright? Don’t fuck this up! I mean it!

Senseless - You can count on us... Okay, you can count on me, ma’am... and Lieutenant Tener says he’ll do his best too...

Spot - Alright, just make sure— Hang on, I’ve got Picard on the other line. Spot out.

She clicks a button.

Picard (comm) - Admiral...

Spot - Damn it Picard, I told you, it has to be the Enterprise that picks up bread and milk on the way home, you’re the only ship in the sector!

(Sorry to whomever made up that line, but it was too funny to leave out.)

Scene 3 - Camera is on the Celestial as it drops out of warp and approaches a cloud of debris surrounding a planet.

Senseless - First officer’s log, stardate 436063.6. We have arrived at Sigmus V, the site of the late Starbase 231, which was destroyed only a few hours ago by some sort of bomb. It is one of twenty-three Starfleet starbases throughout the Federation which have been either destroyed or heavily damaged by similar explosives. Starfleet has asked us to lead the investigation at this particular site, and to gather as much information as we can to help the main task force heading this investigation. End log.

Camera goes to the bridge. All senior staff are present and looking at the wreckage on the viewscreen.

Genocide - (whistles) ...Impressive. Off the top of my head, I can only think of a few devices that would make that big of an explosion.

Righteous - Woah... It’s a good thing nobody got hurt by that.

Everyone turns to look at him.

Baque - Are you fucking retarded?

Bios - Over one thousand people were killed on this station alone!

Righteous - Sucks to be them. So, why are we here?

Senseless - Computer, replay my log recording from time index 16:54–

Righteous - Computer, belay that. I want the abridged version.

Garell - We’re here to find out why someone would bomb a starbase.

Righteous - Oh bombing? Well, that rules out Prophetic involvement. No one who prescribes to follow the path to enlightenment would blow up something.

Senseless - Exactly, sir. Exactly... Lieutenant Tener, Lieutenant Bios, you’ll lead the investigation. You’re authorized to take the Captain’s Yacht–

Righteous - That’s my yacht!

Baque - You never use it.

Genocide - I armed it with phasers.

Senseless - Get back on track. Alright, Lieutenant-Commander Garell, go with them.

Garell - Oh, sure, send the blue person out into a bomb zone...

Puker - If you’re tired being blue, I could alter your skin pigment chemically. You could be whatever colour you wanted to be.

Garell (looking at him with one eye opened further than the other) - Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmm.................. no.

Puker - Suit yourself.

Blavik - With your permission, sir, I’ll head down to the planet. A starship was hit by the explosion and suffered casualties. I should go help treat them.

Senseless - Good idea. Doctor, go with her.

Puker - What!? I don’t think so! You can’t make me!

Blavik does the Vulcan neck pinch on him, and drags him by the foot into the turbolift.

Scene 4 - Scene is on a dark street. It’s night and raining. Logic Man, now dressed as Vulcan Guy (aka Plorik) in a trench coat and one of those trench coat hats, is walking down the street.

Logic Man (voiceover/narration) - The mood throughout the Federation, and especially here on Sigmus V, was sombre. Everyone feels saddened by the recent events. I, of course, feel nothing. While my trusty sidekick Binky stays and guards the motel room, I thought I’d pay a visit to the city’s hospital, and interview some of the survivors of the starship that had been caught in the blast wave as it was leaving the station. Perhaps they detected something that might help me.

Plorik/Logic Man/Vulcan Guy/ah screw it enters a building marked “Hospital” in several languages. He walks through the crowded hallways and enters a large room. He starts looking for victims that can still talk and spies Blavik and a groggy Puker treating some of them. Plorik freaks out when he recognizes them.

Plorik - Logic damn it! What are they doing here? Well, it’s a good thing I have a secret identity..

He goes up to the two Celestial officers and pulls out his Federation Security badge and shows it to them.

Plorik - I’m Detective Plorik, a private investigator working on the case of the exploding starbases. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?

Blavik - Not at all.

Puker - You look familiar.

Plorik - I can assure you, we’ve never–

Puker - But then again, all Vulcans look the same to me. Hell, I’ve been serving with Ensign Blavik here for nearly three years and I still mix her up with every other Vulcan on the ship, and she’s the only one in the medical department.

Both Vulcans raise their eyebrows.

Plorik - Fascinating... Alright, perhaps you can tell me the nature of the injuries you’ve seen so far?

Puker - Standard plasma burns, some broken bones from where the inertial dampeners couldn’t compensate. The usual. Why?

Plorik - I understand the ship was hit from the back. Is there anything unusual about the injuries received in that portion of the ship?

Blavik - Well, there were very few survivors from those sections.

Plorik - Where are the bodies being kept?

Blavik - I’ll show you.

Blavik and Plorik go into an adjoining room where all the cots are covered from head to toe with a blanket. Plorik pulls the blanket back on one, revealing a dead yellow-shirt who’s face is saying his last thoughts were “I can’t believe I joined Starfleet for this shit!!!”

Plorik - Medical tricorder?

Blavik hands it to him and he does some quick scans.

Plorik - Fascinating...

Blavik - What is it?

Plorik closes the tricorder and pockets it.

Plorik - I’ll have to conduct further investigation before I can form a hypothesis, and I have a friend who will want to see this.

Blavik - Who?

Plorik - Logic Man. He’s doing his own investigation.

Blavik - Oh, not him again...

Plorik pretends to ignore her and leaves the room. Once out of earshot, he pulls out a communicator of some sort and taps it.

Plorik - Logic Man to Binky. Come in, Binky.

Binky (comm) - Whee?

Plorik - Prep the Logicmobile. I have a hunch... I mean a hypothesis that warrants further study... yeah.

The IDIC symbol zooms in then out as funky colours swirl in the background and corny music plays as the scene changes.

Scene 5 - Tener, Garell, and Bios are in the Captain’s Yacht scanning the wreckage of the station.

Bios - Tritanium, duranium, dilithium, deuterium, whatever did this certainly left nothing intact.

Garell - Judging by the radiation, I’d say the explosion was caused by antimatter, but the starbase wasn’t holding any.

Tener - Don’t starbases have warp cores?

Garell - No. Just big honking fusion reactors.

Tener - And big honking space guns!

Bios - This doesn’t make any sense at all! How could there be this many free neutrons?!

Garell - How could you know?

Bios - This thing is incredibly accurate. There are too many free neutrons for this to have been done by anti-hydrogen. I think we’re looking at antimatter that’s higher up on the periodic table than anti-hydrogen.

Tener - Wait, doesn’t it become progressively harder to produce antimatter the bigger the anti-element is?

Garell - Yeah... Why would someone go through that much trouble if they’re just going to blow it up? Is that thing picking up anything else?

Bios - Mesons... which is odd, but I can’t see how it’s linked. Oh, wait a minute... that’s impossible. Mesons have a lifetime of only about 2 microseconds. There shouldn’t be any here, not after this much time.

Garell - Can we assume the readers don’t know the first thing about particle physics?

Tener - Hope so, because the author doesn’t know jack either. Mesons having longer than a 2-microsecond lifetime? Please...

Bios - Well, this is Star Trek, nothing makes sense. Just accept the fact that this doohicky thingy attached to the yacht’s sensors are picking up long-lasting mesons.

Beep beep beep! Beep beep beep! Beep beep beep!

Tener - There’s a ship approaching. It’s... um... Onscreen.

The viewscreen on the yacht changes to show a pearl-white ship which looks like the Raven (you know, that one from Voyager that changed size between episodes), but with IDIC symbols on it and probably armed to the teeth.

Garell - What...

Bios - The...

Tener - Hell?

Garell - Um... hailing it.

Logic Man and Binky the Mistreated Targ appear on the screen.

Garell, Bios, Tener - Oh, not him again...

Logic Man - Live long and prosper. I assume you’ve come to scan the wreckage for radiation.

Garell - Yes... and we found mesons! Ha!

Logic Man - But did you also know there were free quarks in the shockwave? I... err... a friend of mine detected them in the bodies of the dead crew of that ship that got hit by the shockwave. Perhaps we should combine our efforts and come to a conclusion faster.

Binky has his eyes closed and is shaking his head in disgust.

Garell - I’m pretty sure the rest of the Federation already figured this out, we’re just here to clean up the mess; we just haven’t been told yet.

Logic Man (as confused as a Vulcan can look) - I’ve been monitoring the official channels. So far, no one has detected mesons. Their sensors aren’t calibrated to look for them in such low quantities.

Bios - Then how come it comes standard on this thing?

Tener - Because our dear captain is a moron, and probably had everything reconfigured at random.

Righteous appears on a side monitor.

Righteous (comm... ish) - Ensign Center says you found mesons. That crewman that said reconfiguring the sensors to look for small amounts of mesons was a bad idea owes me money! Prophets: 1. Dumb crewman: 0! Go Prophets!

Tener - Let me guess, sir, the Prophets told you to reconfigure the sensors in this thing.

Righteous - Yep. In a dream a few weeks ago. They told me it was necessary to determine what kind of device was going to be used to blow something up.

Everyone, including Logic Man and Binky look at Righteous on the monitor with their jaws open.

Garell - ...What!?!

Righteous - Oops, Barney and Friends is on. Got to go!

Beep! Screen goes off.

Logic Man - Is that the same Captain Righteous Lee who was barely able to walk the last time I saw him?

Bios - ...Yes...

Logic Man - You guys have issues. I can’t stand the illogic you guys insist on living with. But I will take your information and get back to you with my results.

The screen goes back to showing broken metal.

Tener - Did I hear correctly? Did our jerk of a captain have a precognitive vision?

Garell - I’m more inclined to believe in the Prophets than that. I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation...

Logic Man appears on the main viewer again.

Logic Man - Did someone say they need some help with logic?

Tener, Garell, Bios - No! Get a life!

Binky presses a button on the Logicmobile’s console and the transmission cuts.

Bios - Sheesh...

Scene 6 - A motel room on Sigmus V. Logic Man, now disguised as Detective Plorik, is pacing back and forth while Binky the Mistreated Targ, now disguised as Binky the Mistreated Targ sans robes and mask, munches down on some food that looks like crap.

Plorik - So, logically, we have mesons detected in the wreckage, free quarks in the shockwave, and a high concentration of free high-energy neutrons. The energy released suggests an antimatter explosion, but everything else suggests a form of antimatter more massive than anti-hydrogen was used. Where could one obtain something bigger than anti-hydrogen?

Binky - Whee!

Plorik - Of course! You can’t obtain it! The Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, Breen, Dominion, and virtually every other race we’ve come across don’t have anything that can create anything above anti-lithium in mass quantities...

Binky - Whee!

Plorik - Yes, I think it’s time to meet our friend...

The IDIC symbol zooms in and out while funky colours... just watch Batman. Scene changes to a dark alley somewhere. Plorik, once again in his trench coat, walks with a purpose and nearly trips over a homeless person.

Homeless Person - Hey! Society owes me! Don’t you walk away from me!

Plorik - Illogical. You’ve done nothing for society.

Homeless Person - And your mother was a swamp beetle!

Section 31 Agent - You’ve seen too much.

Pzzzt! The same shadowy figure Genocide has been seen talking with several times vapourizes the homeless guy with a phaser, then sort of turns to talk to Logic Man.

Agent - You wanted to meet with me?

Plorik - I require information regarding possible threats to the Federation.

Agent - Can I assume this has something to do with the recent “starbases go boom” headlines?

Plorik - The USS Celestial’s captain had the Captain’s Yacht reconfigured to look for small amounts of meson particles. He said the Prophets told him to do it.

Agent - We’re looking into that. As for threats to the Federation, I can think of several. Be more specific.

Plorik - Who has the ability to convert normal matter into antimatter?

Agent - ...You’ve got me there. The only incidence I know of was merely a side note last year when a pre-warp society destroyed their entire planet using such technology. The Cardassians were involved, but I doubt they have such technology.

Plorik - Fascinating...

Agent - Could you please tell me what it is with that word and Vulcans?

Plorik - In our language we have over 100 different words that mean “Fascinating.”

Agent - Clearly. 

Plorik - Of the races you know of who might possess this technology, which ones hate the Federation, or Starfleet?

Agent - Perhaps you didn’t understand me: Section 31 doesn’t know of any. And if we don’t know of any, no one does.

Plorik - Well, aren’t we full of ourselves. Most illogical to believe such a thing.

Agent - Well... This has been a huge waste of time. Goodbye.

The agent vanishes, and Plorik starts walking back down the alley.

Logic Man (voice over) - I was familiar with the incident he described. However, that system is hundreds of light-years away, and the Logicmobile has a top speed of warp 6. We’d never be able to get there in time to stop another such attack, and logic dictates more attacks are coming. That leaves me with but one choice, something I would abhor otherwise, but desperate times call for desperate measures...

Scene 7 - Bridge of the Celestial. Senseless, Righteous, Center, and Genocide are present and doing nothing. Center’s console beeps.

Center - Captain, we’re receiving a small text message from somewhere. It says we should check out a system in sector 553 where a device was used to convert normal matter into antimatter, because the starbase was destroyed using a similar means.

Bios - What?

Center - We’re receiving a small text message–

Bios - No, how can normal matter be converted into antimatter without the use of a particle accelerator?

Righteous - I don’t know what that is, so I’m going to say “maybe!”

Senseless - If there’s one thing I’ve learned from living on this ship, it’s that none of the stuff that happens to us is designed to make any sense at all. Lieutenant Baque, set a course for whatever planet we went to all those months ago, maximum warp.

Camera goes outside the ship and pans around to the landing strip like thingy behind the shuttlebay, where Logic Man and Binky the Mistreated Targ are standing there wearing spacesuits.

Logic Man - Alright, so now we just need to find a way inside.

The two super (hah) heroes walk over to what looks like a vent of some sort, just big enough to crawl inside. Logic Man tries to open it, but even his super-Vulcan powers are insufficient.

Logic Man - Fascinating. Binky, come here.

Binky magnetically trots up and looks up at Logic Man. The Vulcan picks him up by the tail and raises him over his head.

Binky - Whee! (Translation: I know where this is going...)

WHAM!

The hatch opens and a content Logic Man and a dizzy Binky slip inside, just as the Celestial goes to maximum warp.

Scene 8 - Celestial’s bridge, several hours later. All senior staff except Tener, Puker and Blavik are present.

Baque - Since the dawn of time, no one has been able to tell me exactly how the warp scale works. For example, our maximum warp is warp 9.936, which is just over 3,000 times the speed of light. How come we’re able to traverse hundreds of light-years in a few hours?

Righteous - I thank the Prophets!

Genocide - I think Starfleet lies to us and the universe is a lot smaller than we think it is.

Senseless (rubbing his forehead) - How much longer until we get there?

Baque - Relax sir, we’re here.

Senseless sits up and puts his coffee back in the cup holder.

Senseless - Finally. Drop to impulse. Lieutenant Bios, start scanning for anything that could potentially kill us.

Bios - Nothing on sensors.

Genocide - Should I raise shields anyway?

Righteous - No, why would you raise shields?

Genocide - Because no matter how this turns out, we are gonna get the crap kicked out of us today.

Righteous - Who cares, the sooner we find these terrorists the sooner we can all go home.

Garell- Sir, these weren’t terrorist attacks.

Righteous - Ha, could have fooled me.

Garell - These were attacks on military installations. That’s an act of war, not terrorism.

Righteous - Well excuuuuuuuseeee me if the Cardassians said those two things were the same.

Bios - Hold the phone, everyone. I’m picking up lots of free neutrons and mesons, just like at the starbase wreckage site.

Righteous - What’s a phone?

Senseless - Umm, Lieutenant, what’s the status of the planet’s moon which we discovered a warp signature on?

Bios hits some buttons, and the viewscreen changes to show a shattered-looking moon at great distance.

Bios - It was nearly destroyed, but it’s intact. Less than a billion kilometres away, orbiting the sun in a highly oblique orbit.

Center’s console starts frantically beeping.

Center - Sir! Someone is trying to steal a shuttlecraft!

Senseless - Close the doors!

Camera watches as the shuttlebay doors open and an Argo-type shuttlecraft flies out. Camera goes back to the bridge, where the viewscreen is showing the shuttle heading for the rogue moon. (Do those qualify as planets? Pluto? What’s the verdict?)

Senseless - Tractor beam.

Bios - Offline.

Garell - Well, we never used it, I didn’t think it was a repair priority!

Righteous - Pursuit course, maximum speed!

Genocide - Locking target.

Senseless - Wait, open hailing frequencies.

Center - Channel open.

Senseless - This is the starship Celestial, identify yourself!

Logic Man and Binky appear on the screen.

Logic Man - In the name of logic I have commandeered this vessel to assist me in my investigation. Don’t worry, I’ll give it back. After all, I’ll need you to take me back to Sigmus V.

The channel cuts.

Senseless - Damn it, put us over that moon. Scan the surface.

Center - What about Logic Man, sir?

Senseless - He’s more of an annoyance than a threat. I believe him. Anything on sensors, Lieutenant?

Bios - Believe it or not, there’s a metal structure down there. I’m not reading any atmosphere or biosigns, though.

Senseless - Captain, I’ll take–

FLASH! Righteous finds himself on the glowing bridge of the Celestial. It’s empty at first. Various Prophets come into view.

Senseless Prophet - Your presence is needed on that moon.

Righteous - Prophets!

Garell Prophet - Yes... now, go to the moon.

Righteous - Take me with you!

Sisko - Sorry, you participate well, but fail to follow instructions!

Poof! Righteous appears back on the real bridge.

Righteous - Those make less and less sense.

Senseless - What?

Righteous - The Prophets want me to go to the moon. Blue woman, girl who breaks stuff a lot, go find guy who I promoted for no reason whatsoever and get some loyal under-underlings and meet me in the beamy-thingy room in a few minutes.

Senseless (practically quoting) - Sir, Starfleet regulations require you to stay on the ship and send your first officer–

Righteous - Can it, Commander, I’m going down to that moon. You have your orders, everyone!

Righteous leaves the bridge. Everyone kind of stands there stunned at the sudden assertiveness that their dumb Bajoran captain just showed.

Scene 9 - Righteous, Garell, Bios, Tener, and three No-Name security guards materialize inside a lab of some sort, wearing environmental suits.

Garell - Bios, get to work on the computer systems. I’ll try to restore power.

Tener - You two, patrol the area and see if you can find any trace of anything dangerous.

No-Name #3 - You can count on us, sir!

No-Name #4 - You’re new here, aren’t you?

The two No-Names wander off. Lieutenant-Commander Garell flicks some switches and the lights come on.

Garell - We’re in business.

Righteous - What do we sell again?

Tener - Discount cans of whoop-ass.

Bios (accessing the computers) - Seems that’s what we usually buy, at high prices.

Suddenly, all the monitors come alive, showing an old Bajoran guy dressed in typical Bajoran clothing and wearing the dumb earring.

Guy - Research log, Katrell Eden, stardate 189065.8. This will be my last log at this station! That’s right, I’ve perfected the inversion beam and am getting the fire caves off this rock and back to Bajor.

Beep! The screens change to showing a bunch of status displays that mean nothing to anyone.

Righteous - Yay! Bajorans!

Garell - There’s no way that translated correctly. If I heard him correct, that stardate was over 200 years ago!

Tener - Um... let’s see... 2135? Does that sound right?

Bios - July 26, 2135 to be exact...

No-Name #4 (wandering by) - Cool, that’s today’s date.

Everyone stops.

Garell - He’s right, that’s 247 years ago, to the day.

Righteous - What does that mean?

Bios - Nothing! Just a dumb coincidence! I’ve found something more interesting!

Garell - You found out what he was working on?

Logic Man walks in, also wearing an environmental suit.

Logic Man - What have you found?

Tener - We found out that exactly 247 years ago, some Bajoran scientist by the name of Katrell Eden finished up some work he’d been wasting his life on.

Bios - Not wasting. He was experimenting with a way to invert the electric charge on matter using meson pulses!

Righteous - In modern Bajoran, please?

Bios - He was researching a way to convert normal matter into antimatter! Holy Pentium Fives, Logic Man!

Logic Man - What?

Bios - Oh nothing, I’d just always wanted to say that.

Garell - Can you access the rest of the main computer?

Bios - Nah, just that last log entry and a few minor details. I can’t access anything else, it’s all been encrypted.

Garell (points to some weird control on the console) - This looks like some kind of biometric sensor.

Righteous - Ooh I love those, if you stick your hand on them, they tell you your fortune!

Righteous places his hand on the control, and suddenly the entire database is open for them.

Bios - Well, who would have thunk it? Good thing you volunteered to come on this mission, sir. Looks like it was designed to respond only to Bajoran DNA.

Tener - Access the logs, see if it says anything about what happened last year.

Bios - I’m on it.

No-Name #3 (comm) - No-Name #3 to Captain Righteous, you guys better get down here. I’ve found something.

Scene 10 - Astrometrics Lab on the Celestial. Center, Senseless, and Genocide are looking at the big screen, which is displaying a schematic of the Federation.

Senseless - Alright, you said you found something disturbing?

Center - You guys are not going to believe this!

Genocide - Hey, quiet down, we’re right next to you.

Camera has its back to the screen. Center, shaking and wide eyed, hits some buttons and then looks up at the screen. Senseless’s and Genocide’s eyes go as wide as Center’s.

Scene 11 - Briefing room, all senior staff and Logic Man and Binky are present.

Puker - Why is everyone all freaked out?

Senseless - I don’t even know where to start, Doctor.

Logic Man - Allow me, Commander.

Everyone looks at him. Logic Man gets up and walks over to the wall monitor. He hits some buttons, and a picture of the inside of the research facility they had just been at appears, showing an empty room with lots of what look like holding racks for devices of some sort, wires protruding from the ceiling.

Logic Man - Ketrell Eden was a brilliant Bajoran scientist who lived almost 250 Earth years ago. He was the leading mind on antimatter at the time when Earth and Vulcan were still bickering with each other.

Righteous - Go us!

Logic Man - He travelled across the quadrant, searching for new ways to produce antimatter. He stumbled across this system, which possesses a rare mineral which can concentrate mesons and energize them to the point where they have a very long life span, nearly a billion years. Using this, he was able to devise a way to convert ordinary matter into pure antimatter using a beam of such mesons. His devices had the power to destroy entire planets, although he only ever intended to use them to make lightweight and easy to use hair care products.

Garell - That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.

Binky taps some buttons and a schematic of the Federation with red blobs all clustered in one area near the border with the Gorn.

Logic Man - All these red blobs indicate a starbase that was destroyed with these devices. There were 23, and Katrell made 30 inversion bombs. One was used on the planet in this system nearly a year ago. That leaves six unaccounted for. That means where are six planets that are in grave danger.

Blavik - How do you know that?

Senseless - Okay, now you’ve lost me.

Logic Man - Simple logic, Ensign. You see, all of these starbases bordered on the Gorn’s space. They acted as fleet supply lines and communications outposts. Also, the threat of more bombings has prompted Starfleet to nearly evacuate all its other starbases throughout Federation space. With minimal crew, they pose no threat to an invasion fleet.

Genocide - Oh, this oughtta be good. Who is invading us this time?

Logic Man - You certainly remember the Orion Syndicate, and perhaps you remember that they enlisted the help of the Gorn at one point. Also, they now have the support of several rogue Breen factions. I would hazard to guess, logically of course, that they are preparing to make their move.

Baque - And what move would that be?

Logic Man gets all serious like and looks them all in the eye one at a time.

Logic Man - Checkmate...

Pause...

Righteous - I wanna rematch! They cheated!

Scene 12 - Spacedock, orbiting Earth. Fleet Admiral Spot, Admiral Nelix, and Admiral Ross are standing around.

Spot - Where the hell is the Celestial? They were supposed to send in a report of their investigation findings! How hard is it to scan some debris and send us a list of the stuff they picked up!?

Nelix - I think you overestimate the intelligence of the people you’re talking about.

Admiral Ross - I agree. We should assume they never even went to Sigmus V.

No-Name #5 - Ops to Admiral Spot.

Spot - Spot here. Go ahead.

No-Name #5 - We’re picking up a transmission, it’s being broadcasted all over the quadrant as far as I can tell.

Spot - Route it down here.

Chester, the cat who used to run the Orion Syndicate (and also lived with O’Brien for a while) appears on the screen.

Chester - By now, most of you should be aware that twenty-three Federation starbases have been destroyed. This was done by using antimatter inversion bombs, which convert normal matter into antimatter, and well, you know the rest. We have six of these devices. We have planted them on Earth, Romulus, Qo’noS, Cardassia Prime, Bajor, and an unnamed and loosely-populated colony somewhere in Federation space. To show you the destructive power, I shall now blow up that nameless colony simply because I’m evil.

The screen goes to showing a picture of a nameless colony, which promptly explodes in a giant fireball. Chester comes back on the screen.

Chester - We will detonate them unless the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Star Empire, the United Federation of Planets, and the Cardassian Union surrender to us unconditionally. Long live the Syndicate! Meow!

The screen goes blank. There is a deafening silence in the room.

Spot - Fat chance! I really hate that furball...

Nelix - Me too, ma’am, but I doubt anyone will listen to him.

No-Name #5 - Admiral, we’re picking up a broadcast being transmitted from Earth.

The Federation President (a different one than before, because they change like every week) appears on the screen.

President - On behalf of the people of the Federation, I surrender.

Spot - God damn it...

To be continued...