Reed stepped backwards, way from the grisly contents of the torpedo, suddenly feeling unable to catch his breath properly, as he fought to maintain his balance. He collided with launch tube two, and grabbed onto the torpedo, using it to haul himself upright. Taking a deep, steadying breath, he straightened up and dashed across to the wall panel, flicking on the ship-wide communications panel.
"This is Lieutenant Reed," he said, fighting to keep his tone neutral and his voice steady, "Doctor Phlox, Captain Archer, please report to the Armoury immediately."
He vaguely heard their acknowledgements as he closed the channel; their saboteur turned assailant had just added murder to their list of crimes, and Reed knew the ship-wide announcement would have indicated to the killer that their crime had just been discovered. Glancing back at the open torpedo, Reed checked the duty logs; Timmins should have been off duty. She had last been recorded as having checked into her quarters some four hours ago, and the logs indicated that, by all accounts, she was still there. Reed sealed the door to her quarters automatically and dispatched two guards to lockdown the whole corridor.
A chime at the door was calamitously loud in the otherwise silent Armoury and he started at the sound. Not bothering to check who was there, Reed opened the door. Phlox stood there, medical kit in hand, only slightly out of breath.
"I came as quickly as I could," the doctor said, hurriedly, "has there been another incident?"
"You could say that, doctor," Reed replied, hollowly, "I'm afraid there is very little that you can do in this case..."
Leaving the door unsealed – the Captain would no doubt arrive soon – Reed crossed to the torpedo tube and, forcing himself not to look away from the tragic figure of his junior officer, he beckoned to the doctor to join him. Frowning, Phlox joined him, and then his expression folded into one of sympathy when he saw the body in the tube.
"Ensign... Timmins, I believe?"
"Yes," Reed could not look away from her face; there was something almost accusatory about her sightless stare, "Ensign Gloria Timmins, she is... was... twenty-six. She was developing into an excellent computer securities specialist..."
She looked so painfully young and small, crammed haphazardly into the torpedo tube casing. Phlox took out his scanner, passing it over her crumpled form.
"I'm detecting several broken vertebrae in her neck," Phlox reported, quietly, as Reed picked up his own scanner again, "she's been dead for at least three hours... it seems the attacker came from behind and exerted extreme lateral force while she was in a relaxed position."
"She was in her quarters," Reed supplied, in a dull voice, "she liked to read. She was probably sitting in a chair..."
The Armoury door whisked open, and they both turned to find Captain Archer standing in the doorway. Noting their mutual grim expressions, Archer dispensed immediately with any greetings.
"What's happened?" he demanded.
Reed took a deep breath; "Ensign Timmins, sir. She's been murdered. I just discovered her body inside a torpedo tube. Someone bypassed my security lockout, accessed the Armoury and dumped her here."
"What?" Archer's stunned disbelief was palpable.
"That's not all, sir," Reed shook his head, glancing at the doctor, "whoever did this removed the matter/anti-matter containment core from the torpedo warhead, and they did it in under twelve minutes. Our saboteur-turned murderer now has the capacity to detonate a variable yield matter/anti-matter reaction that could blow a three square kilometre hole in the Enterprise."
An investigation of Ensign Timmins' quarters had yielded very little information. A pad, discarded on the floor, and an upended chair told Reed he had been correct; the Ensign had been reading when she had been attacked from behind. A hatchway hung open from the ceiling, leading into a crawlspace above; no doubt the assailant's method of ingress, but there was no way a body could have been removed that way... out in the corridor, however, was another convenient crawlspace that had not been properly fastened. Reed had followed it and found a route that eventually led to just outside the Armoury. DNA traces in the crawlspace matched Timmins, though there was no trace of the murderer, who must have taken precautions against leaving such evidence. Reed surmised that the body could have remained hidden in the crawlspace with the killer lying in wait for a convenient moment to access the Armoury and hide the body.
"Whether or not I was meant to find the body, I don't know," Reed reported, to the rest of the senior staff, as they gathered around the briefing table at the back of the Bridge, "it's entirely possible the killer intended to launch the torpedo and ran out of time, or that they intended for the torpedo to be launched the next time we entered into conflict or tested the weapons. Either way, whoever did this is clearly extremely well trained and very dangerous."
"Deliberate sabotage, an assault on one officer and another murdered," Archer summarised, glancing at each of his officers in turn, "and now there might be a bomb somewhere on board."
"More accurately, a time bomb, sir," Reed caught Archer's questioning glance, "the anti-matter storage container requires a constant power supply to maintain the containment fields. While the torpedoes are inactive, this is supplied from the Armoury, but when detached from the warhead a back-up battery system takes over."
"And when the battery runs down, the containment fields begin to fail," Archer realised, "and when the field collapses, the matter meets anti-matter reaction will blow a hole straight through the ship... how long have we got?"
"The battery life is good for at least twenty hours, Captain... after this, once the field begins to decay, there will be a measurable increase in Gamma radiation prior to the matter/anti-matter reaction."
"Captain," T'Pol cut in, "it may be possible to scan the ship for anomalous power readings, gamma rays, or shielding. The containment device is small and easily concealed, but it will be emitting a power reading unless it has been properly shielded."
"Plugging it into a power supply could also be a way to extend the battery indefinitely," Trip added, "we could look for any unusual power consumption readings."
"Do it, both of you," Archer nodded, "Hoshi, anything unusual on the communications channels?"
"No sir," Ensign Hoshi Sato shook her head, "I've been monitoring all outgoing and incoming transmissions and there's been nothing unusual in any of the signals."
"Keep looking – our saboteur must be taking orders from someone, Section 31 or not," Archer told her, "Malcolm, any suspects so far?"
"Including Ensign Timmins, there were only six people who had access to the Armoury and worked on the affected systems over the last six months," Reed consulted his pad, but in truth he had the list committed to memory; "Crewman Davies, Crewman Oban, Crewman Stuart, Ensign Timmins, Ensign Lee and Ensign D'Arcy."
"D'Arcy?"
Archer was also more than familiar with the Ensign's background, and Reed suppressed the urge to leap to the young man's defence, instead saying; "Everyone on that list has, at some point, had unfettered access to all of the Armoury systems. I suspect Ensign Timmins was... killed... because she may have worked with the saboteur and witnessed something he or she thought would betray them."
"Cross-check to see who the Ensign was on duty with over the last six months and see if anything matches your maintenance logs," Archer ordered, despite knowing Reed would already be doing so, "I want this saboteur found and locked in the brig, understood?"
There was a chorus of assent, and Archer dismissed his officers to their posts. They returned to their Bridge stations, Reed finding that the Tactical Console was still on lockdown. He fired it up, idly remembering that he had not had time to run a full system check on the Bridge console since rebuilding virtually all of the systems in the Armoury. He set the computer to run a diagnostic, simultaneously running the cross checks of Timmins' duty roster and the maintenance logs with his dwindling suspect list, while also beginning to conduct his own internal scans of the ship searching for the torpedo warhead. At the back of the Bridge, Trip was assessing power output across the ship, while T'Pol was looking for anomalous energy readings.
"Travis," Archer took his seat in the centre of the Bridge, addressing the Helmsman directly, "I want you to plot a course for the nearest habitable planet and get us there as quickly as possible... Hoshi, send an encoded sub-space message to Starfleet Headquarters... Keep it short and simple. Tell them we have a suspected saboteur on board and that we are making haste to the nearest habitable planet to evacuate all non-essential personnel from the ship. I want that bomb found, but if we can't locate it, I want as many people off the ship as possible before it explodes. Tell Starfleet that if they don't hear from us within twenty-four hours they need to dispatch a rescue ship post-haste to collect survivors."
"Aye sir," Hoshi's voice betrayed her apprehension, but she obeyed and set to work.
"The Vulcan database indicates a Minshara Class planet in a nearby solar system three hours away at maximum warp," T'Pol offered, informatively, "it is inhabited by an array of flora and fauna but there are no indications of civilisation."
"Sounds perfect," Archer nodded, "Travis?"
"Course plotted and laid in, sir," Ensign Travis Mayweather replied, promptly.
"Then let's go," Archer waved his hand, and a small shudder ran through the ship as the warp engines powered up; then, with only a slight shift as the inertial dampeners compensated for their momentum, the ship leapt into high warp.
While at warp, the Bridge crew worked on in a tense silence; Reed knew Archer's precautions of warning Starfleet and evacuating the crew were both sensible, but he could not help be concerned that it might tip off their saboteur, or worse, force their hand into making a sudden, unexpected move. His console beeped at him, breaking his chain of thought, indicating that the cross-check of his suspect list had been completed. He keyed the information up onto his screen to review it, but T'Pol's voice cut in, making him glance up, along with everyone else.
"Captain, I am detecting an anomalous power reading."
"Where?" Archer turned his chair towards the science station, his tone urgent.
"I am having difficulty isolating the source," T'Pol turned to look at her scanner and made a minor adjustment, "the reading is fluctuating..."
"I've got it too," Trip called out, "it's coming from one of the upper decks."
"Should we drop out of warp, sir?" Mayweather asked, urgently.
"Negative, stay on course," Archer ordered, quickly, then pressing for a response; "T'Pol?"
"The reading is growing in intensity but by scanners are unable to lock onto a specific source," T'Pol's hands flicked quickly over the controls, "I am modulating the frequency and broadening the scan bandwidth."
"I see it too," Reed tuned the Tactical scanners into the odd reading, "but I can seem to isolate the source..."
Trip crossed to T'Pol's station, punching in a few commands; "I'm boosting the power to the internal sensors, if we recalibrate them to track the energy flow through the relays..."
He trailed off, staring intensely at the readouts, as T'Pol turned back to the scanner.
"The energy reading is increasing," T'Pol reported, bent over her scanner, "it seems to be building up to a surge..."
"An explosion, you mean?" Archer queried, urgency lacing his tone, "Are we about to suffer a hull breach?"
"I don't think so," Trip frowned, "I'm trying to trace the path of the surge, it's odd – it doesn't look like an anti-matter containment breach..."
"Something is interfering with internal scanners," T'Pol reported, "my readings appear to being deliberately interrupted by electro-magnetic interference."
"Output levels still increasing," Trip called out, "Jon, it's here! It's somewhere on the Bridge!"
"Travis, drop us out of warp!" Archer rapped out his orders, "Hoshi, transmit urgent distress beacon to Starfleet! Trip, T'Pol, I need answers! Do we evacuate the Bridge?"
A small but insistent warning beep sounded from Reed's console. He glanced at it, and pressed a few keys, concern creasing his brow – something did not appear to be right...
"I don't think we're building up to..." Trip began to say, but then broke off, his eyes widening in alarm as he looked up, "It's Tactical! Malcolm – your console – move!"
Reed looked up in surprise, but it was too late. Beneath his hands, the Tactical Console sparked, and then exploded. He was distantly aware of shouts of alarm as he was lifted off his feet by the force of the blast. He collided with the bulkhead behind him; vaguely, in a detached and distant way, he was aware of the pain only momentarily, as his vision faded in a shower of white sparks.
