Alpha Isles – The USS Ronin rushes towards the Proxima Sigma and Alpha Sigma systems at high warp to respond to calls for aid following an unprovoked terror attack on both colonies.
The Ronin received a distress call as their awards ceremony wrapped, shunting them from shoreleave right back into the thick of things for their first mission in the Isles since the Siege of DS33 months ago. The call came following the terror attack on Alpha Sigma’s Receiving station as well as the transit train called the Soliton Express, rumored to be carrying nearly a thousand passengers. The ‘train’ is one of several in use by the twin Federation colonies, a ‘locomotive’ with roughly a dozen kilometer long segment tethered together with a variant of a tractor beam. They travel along a Soliton Wave, to seamlessly travel at warp 5 between the twin Sigma systems, each roughly 2 light years from one another. Both colonies have receiving stations which normally create the opposite wave to counteract the oncoming wave to decelerate the trains.
Sadly, the receiving station at Proxima Sigma suffered a catastrophic explosion that decimated the station itself and subsequently removed the colonies means to slow the oncoming energy wave. The trains are equipped with emergency failsafe ‘brakes’ to dissipate the wave in a crisis, however, preliminary reports suggest the train itself was sabotaged in concert with the attack on the station. At present, no one has claimed any responsibility for the attack, nor have any demands, or ultimatums been issued.
En route, the Akira class starship has already dispatched multiple runabouts, both to the damaged receiving station as well as to the Soliton Express herself. Given the nature of the use of the Soliton wave, the crew is unable to employ the same method the Enterprise-D once did to stop the wave. As the use of so many photon torpedoes would certainly destroy the train and the thousand occupants, an alternative is being researched by the Ronin’s science staff while en route.
However, should such an alternative not be possible, the crew may be forced to make a terrible choice. The Soliton wave is estimated to reach Proxima Sigma in under ninety hours. It should be noted the colony has a population of nearly nineteen million and while an evacuation was begun, there simply is not enough time to effectively do so with such a large populace.
We hope that the Ronin crew is able to find a solution, as well as uncover who’s responsible for the attack before it’s too late for the colonists, or for the Soliton Express.
Written by Toryn Raga
