LEAST COMMON DENOMINATOR

Teaser:

The red alert claxon wailed as Admiral da Silva burst out of the turbolift. An older man without a single gray hair on his Brazilian head, his heritage endowed him with a permanent suntan and a ready temper. "What the hell is going on," he demanded.

"Do you want the good news, or the bad news?" asked Commander Tanek rhetorically. The Vulcan was working on his humor, but always seemed to choose the worst moments to put it in to practice. The admiral's stern glance was answer enough. Tanek understood and continued, "The main computer is off-line, a plasma fire has ignited in the auxiliary anti-matter storage bay, fire suppression systems are off-line, and the structural integrity field has dropped to 53%."

"Filha da puta!" exclaimed da Silva. "This is Utopia Planetia; not Mir." Striking his comm badge, "Lt. Holmgren report."

Down in engineering, chaos reigned. "Engineering here sir, but I don't know for how long." The wirery chief of engineering ran his fingers over a control panel; determined to contain the anti-matter core.

"Explain yourself," came the Admiral's voice, but Jon Holmgren didn't hear it. At that moment the seal on the reactor chamber, a mere 10 meters away, breached. A force field energized, but without the computational power of the main computer to avoid humanoid life-forms, this protective energy beam cut Lt. Holmgren right down the middle. The battle for containment was lost and Jon its first casualty.

Back in Ops, the communications officer swivelled in her chair to face da Silva. "Communications with engineering is gone, sir."

Da Silva's mind was racing. Every Starfleet officer is trained to handle the Kobayashi-Maru, but when the real thing comes, you're never ready. "Assume the worst," barked da Silva. "Ensign, order full evacuation. Mr. Tanek, manually execute command X-J-L. Lt. Simmons, detonate the emergency release clamps for the construction pods. Inform the captains of the vessels currently docked to get the hell outta here!"

No "aye sir" was spoken. Everyone knew that time was their enemy now. Fingers flew faster than spoken words could be uttered. This magnificent space vessel, which had been their home away from earth for all these years, would soon be their death chamber. It was a haunting thought that made words meaningless. Only the computer, which had no comprehension of the finality of the situation, chimed it's alert. "Warning: Structural containment field strength at 14%. Estimated time to cascade failure in 7 seconds."

As Admiral da Silva glanced around Ops for his last time, he noted the professionalism of his crew. He expected them to encounter fear in the face of death, however their actions spoke volumes. But in all the commotion, one thing caught his attention. He stared at the commemoration plaque of the space station without blinking. It's motto sinking deep into his soul.