In the pitch black of the bedroom, the only noise that could be heard was a combination of giggling, the occasional yelp and the rustling of sheets with slight whimpers and moans punctuating the passage of time. 

Unfortunately, this wasn’t to last as a pulsing orange light suddenly banished the dark, joined by a grating mechanical wail of a siren designed to pierce any sleep, bubbles of inattentiveness or focused mindsets. It wasn’t any of the normal klaxons the crew would be aware of, but a unique and seldom heard one.

“Warning! Warp core reactor overpressure event detected!” the ship’s computer announced to all compartments in a momentary pause of the klaxon before it continued that wail.

Ra-tesh’mi Velan, Chief Engineer aboard the mighty ship Atlantis, was out of bed in record time, slipping into a pair of pants between the pulsing warning light, grabbing an undershirt by the next pulse. He didn’t say anything to the woman still in his bed as he left, his attention solely shifting from her to the disaster unfolding aboard the ship.

“Warning! Warp core reactor overpressure event detected!” the computer announced once more.

Ra’s course towards Engineering resembled a loose torpedo as he sprinted down the corridor to the nearest turbolift, pushing off a wall at a turn and practically diving between the barely open doors, then rocketed out of it when it arrived as close as it could. Junior officers were forced to jump aside, one yanked out of Ra’s path by a friend. As a testament to speed the alarm had only been blaring for a minute by the time Ra rounded the corner into Engineering, bare feet padding along the floor.

Gone was the gentle thrum of the warp core at work, or the much faster pulsing when Atlantis was pushing the limits of her engines. In its place was a whine, the pulses coming fast enough to merge into a single sound. The coolant channels were also flashing, their pumps working overtime to combat the problem the computer was announcing to the whole ship.

“Injectors aren’t responding to commands!” one engineer announced.

“We’re at hundred and two per cent of design spec,” another supplied.

“Commander, good, you’re here.” Lieutenant Merktin, the duty officer for Delta Shift, looked to be the only point of calm in a sea of semi-panicked juniors. But the relief on her Tellarite features at Ra’s arrival was obvious for anyone who had worked with her for any period. “Both injectors just opened to maintenance levels and we can’t get them to close.”

“How?” Ra asked straight away, then waved it off. “How fast are we going?”

“Point nine six,” Merktin answered. She didn’t need to include the nine at the front, that much was obvious from the sounds of the warp core already.

“Great bird,” Ra cursed. “Right we need to -”

“Bridge to Engineering, what’s going on down there?” Rrr’mmm’bal’rrr’s rumble echoed through Engineering but was cut off by the wail of the klaxon once more.

“I’ll tell you when I know,” Ra shouted back. There was no reply, which suited him just fine. Rrr knew enough to let Engineering do their thing and hopefully, just hopefully, intercept any calls from the captain.

“Plan sir?” Merktin asked.

“Open the nacelle plasma vents and discharge them as quickly as we can. It’ll slow the ship and buy us time. We don’t want to melt the warp coils at the same time.” He pushed past Merktin, heading for one of the primary consoles to get an eye on the readouts himself. “And get a team to the antimatter injector right now. Manually close the damn thing if we have to.”

“One oh three!” shouted the engineer who had decided to make it their job to announce just how far past screwed they were right now.

“Now people!” Ra shouted, pouring motivation into his people with those two words.

Three officers, seemingly psychic, grabbed various kit and departed as one with the last informing Merktin they would get to the injector. Another did a tally of those remaining and then started directing people out of Engineering – a few blue shirts, a single red, a pair of techs that weren’t needed right now. And then Merktin appeared at his side, cool and calm.

“Diagnostic hasn’t shown anything,” she uttered while running her own checks.

“Let’s stop the immediate problem before solving the next one,” he answered curtly. “Dammit, even the coolant system is starting to spike. What’s the burst rating for the warp core again?”

“Last I checked the design article popped at a hundred and nine per cent,” Merktin answered. “Let’s hope ours does as well, yes?”

There was a moment of silence between the two as they checked readouts, then looked at each other grimly just as that junior officer made one more announcement.

“One oh five!”

Operating spec had a comfortable margin to design spec. Which had its own margin to failure point. Atlantis was living in that grey zone where safe design was memory and failure was the cliff they were approaching with each passing moment.

“Computer, initiate warp core ejection, authorisation Velan-Two-Six-Tango-Delta-Echo.” The decision wasn’t discussed, just made. It was his call to make, no one else’s. That he’d said it out loud told everyone his thoughts on the matter – the warp core was going to blow and they needed to throw it overboard right away.

Merktin nodded, then provided her own authorisation before shouting loud enough for all to hear even over the sound of whining and complaining engines. “Everyone out! Right now!”

And with that, the computer then did its part as well. “Warning! Warp core ejection in five seconds. Evacuate main engineering. Evacuate main engineering.”

A forcefield snapped up around the warp core as people fled their stations at a run, Velan and Merktin the last to cross the threshold before the large blast door slammed down, cutting off the main engineering from the rest of the ship. Elsewhere on multiple decks the same would be repeated, isolating the reactor assembly’s housing just moments before a rapid-fire series of events would take place.

The ejection hatched was forcibly jettisoned, explosive bolts blew, ullage rockets fired and the heart of Atlantis was thrown overboard in a desperate bid to take the most useful and most dangerous component of the starship as far away as possible. Silence reigned over the crowd of engineers, only deepening as the often-forgotten hum of warp travel slowly faded, Atlantis’ warp core no longer supplying the nacelles and the ship brought to heel by the laws of physics as the nacelles slowly lost power as warp plasma dwindled.

“Well shit,” Velan uttered into that silence, everyone turning to face him. Merktin was a mask of calm, a few others were shocked and then a few faces had realisation dawning on their faces already. Atlantis had been making her way along the Thomar Expanse at a breakneck pace, Captain Theodoras’ intent to get back to the frontier well known to the crew. They were weeks away at high warp from Deep Space 47. Weeks away from help.

And through the crowd stepped one Commander Velo Kendris, Velan’s uniform boots in one hand, his tunic in her other. She’d taken the time to get dressed, to even run a comb through her hair, before gathering his left-behind articles of clothing and bringing them to him. “Perhaps Commander you might want to finish dressing before explaining to the captain why her ship is adrift?”