The Power Struggle

Posted on 08 Mar 2026 @ 8:48pm by Lieutenant Commander Elias Harlan

1,734 words; about a 9 minute read

Elias woke still fully dressed, boots firmly attached to his feet. He hadn’t moved an inch from the position he’d collapsed into—face-down, arms splayed, head half-buried in the pillow. Exhaustion had claimed him so completely he might as well have been powered off.

His body felt melted into the mattress, every muscle loose in a way that bordered on betrayal. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this physically comfortable. For a fleeting second he considered not moving at all—letting the ship orbit without him, letting the problems wait.

But duty had other plans.

The uniform clung like an ugly second skin—grime, sweat, conductive gel, insulation dust all fused into a texture he didn’t want to be part of any longer. He shifted, joints protesting, mind slowly rebooting.

Still early morning. Eight and a half hours of uninterrupted sleep. A miracle. His body was stiff, but his thoughts weren’t sludge anymore. Progress.

The sonic shower came next. Sound waves stripped the filth away like it had never existed, leaving clean skin and the faint ozone scent of recycled air. He missed hot water—the way it could loosen knots in his shoulders, wash away more than dirt—but time was already slipping. He had an appointment planetside.

The fresh uniform did wonders. Clean, crisp, every edge in its proper place. He ate a full breakfast while skimming the overnight reports: tactical array level-one diagnostic complete and green across the board, no overnight faults, skeleton crew holding steady. For once, nothing was actively trying to kill them.

He checked the duty roster. The two he intended to take both clocked in. Good. This was just an initial scan—beam down, meet Constable Kael’s brother-in-law, get eyes on whatever public-works anomaly they’d found, scan it, beam back. Simple.
Soon he was in the transporter room. Ensign Mike Torres and Lieutenant Nathan Caldwell waited, engineering kits slung, tricorders at the ready. Nathan handed him a third tricorder; Elias clipped it to his belt without comment.

The three of them materialized on Lathira IV a little later in the local morning. Civil engineers, including Kael’s brother-in-law, were already waiting.

“The issue first showed up as a load variance in the power supply,” a man named Tomas Hale explained as they descended into Access Tunnel Gamma-12. “We thought it was the coastal exchangers. Then we found this.”

The group—three Starfleet engineers, three civil engineers—stopped at a section of exposed electrical conduit. The outer casing had been cut back cleanly, revealing the insulation sheath beneath.

Elias stared.

Instead of a smooth, uniform surface, the insulation was pitted—almost translucent in places. A faint powdery residue clung to the interior of the housing like fine ash.

“Well, that’s not normal,” Elias muttered, already shining his light into the conduit while the tricorder whirred to life in his other hand.

The molecular bonds were disintegrating—some sections already broken down into base components, others still in active decay. The reaction was ongoing, varying by conduit segment.

He swept the tricorder across the adjacent lines. Same pattern.

“This is worse than I expected,” he said quietly, shaking his head at the readings.

Nathan leaned in beside him. “It’s breaking down into its base parts.”

Mike Torres, scanning from the other side, added, “Look at the base pair variations. It’s not just degrading—it’s mutating.”

Elias exhaled once—long, slow.

“This is showing up everywhere that particular insulation is present,” he said. “Which is everywhere.”

He looked at the civil engineers, then back at the ruined conduit.

“We’ve got a problem,” he said simply. “And it’s bigger than Kestrel Reach.”

He straightened, tricorder still in hand, the faint hum of the device the only sound for a long moment.

“Let’s get samples. Full spectrum. I want molecular breakdown rates, leaching patterns, and any environmental triggers. We need to know how far this has spread—and how fast.” Elias ordered as he glanced at his team.

The emergency lighting flickered again, dimmed briefly, then cycled back to normal. He almost dismissed it as another power hiccup.

Almost.

“Mike, did you see that frequency shift?” Nathan asked, eyes fixed on his tricorder.

“I wouldn’t have seen it at all if I hadn’t been looking when the lights dimmed,” Mike replied, already zooming in on the waveform display.

Elias didn’t interrupt. He just stepped closer, silent, letting them talk it out.

“That was a load variance drift,” Mira Ansel—the third civil engineer—explained, voice calm but tight. “The power distribution system keeps readjusting loads to maintain steady output and frequency.”

The lights flickered again—once, twice—then steadied.

“There! It just happened again,” Mike called out.

“The power frequency oscillations look wrong every time it tries to correct the load,” Nathan added, frowning at his screen.

Elias pulled up his own tricorder history, eyes narrowing as the waveform spiked in perfect sync with the dimming lights. He tapped the display once, freezing the trace.

“Could be because of the damage in the conduit insulation,” he said, thinking aloud.

Nathan shook his head. “I don’t think the shifts are caused by the damage.”

“No,” Mike broke in, “but the shifts are definitely having an effect on the molecular bonds in that conduit.”

Mike looked up from his tricorder. “Every time the variance shifts, there’s a low-frequency harmonic loop that resonates at the same frequency as the molecular resonant frequency of the insulation.”

Elias felt the pieces click into place—quiet, clean, inevitable.

“That would cause a vibration at the quantum level,” Elias finished, voice low but certain. “Literally shaking the bonds apart.”
He stared at the exposed conduit, the pitted, translucent insulation now making perfect sense. Not a sudden failure. Not a manufacturing defect. A slow, self-reinforcing feedback loop.

“If that’s the case,” Hale asked, “what’s causing it?”

“Good question.” Elias tapped his tricorder, pulling up the waveform history. “You said the power distribution system keeps readjusting loads to maintain steady output and frequency. Is that a recent fix, or has it always been this twitchy?”

Mira shook her head. “It’s always done that. The planet’s magnetic field plays hell with high-energy transmission. We’ve tried everything—better shielding, different alloys, even orbital relay satellites. Nothing fully kills the oscillations. This section was supposed to be the answer fifty years ago. First stage of a planet-wide upgrade.”

Mike frowned. “So the grid is constantly fighting itself?”

“Exactly,” Mira said. “Every time the field induces a tiny frequency wobble, the system corrects it.”
Elias’s eyes narrowed as the pattern locked in. He looked up from the tricorder.

“Except if everything’s shielded,” he said slowly, “why is there still a history of frequency variations that need an automated system to fix them? That just doesn’t happen.”

Hale started to answer, then stopped. Mira’s expression shifted in surprise, followed by a frown.

“Because the shielding stops external interference,” Nathan answered as it clicked, voice gaining quiet certainty, “but it doesn’t stop the magnetic field from inducing currents inside the conduit itself. Tiny oscillations. The system keeps correcting them… and every correction pushes the operating frequency to the exact resonant frequency of this insulation.”
He tapped the pitted sheath with one finger.

“Fifty years of the system fighting the planet’s own magnetic field… and the fight itself is what’s killing the conduit. The harder it corrects, the worse the harmonic loop gets. Until the polymer literally shakes itself apart.”

He looked at the civil engineers, then back at his team—Nathan and Mike already deep in their tricorders, scanning for spread patterns.

“We’re going to need to clean this immediate area up,” he said, voice steady. “Contact the ship. I need Collingway to start reconfiguring the cargo transporter in Cargo Bay 3. Turn it into an industrial matter reclamator. Then I need him down here with two damage-control teams with portable pattern enhancers.”

Mira blinked. “Why?”

“Because we need to stop the damage and clean up this section. The best way is to dematerialize the affected conduit runs and the loose powder—all of it. We can spec replacements with a non-resonant polymer insulation that still meets your shielding requirements. Starfleet’s got the patterns on file; we can replicate them in orbit.”

Hale nodded slowly. “And the oscillations?”

Elias thought for a moment, rubbing the back of his neck. “We can try harmonic dampeners at key substations and major junctions. Small, self-tuning units that detect the wobble and inject a counter-phase waveform before the system has to correct frequency. It’ll break the feedback loop without replacing every meter of line on the planet.”

He glanced at the pitted conduit again. “Your people can handle the installs once we prove the design works. We’ll fabricate the first batch on the Arawyn and beam them down. Should keep the automated system from sending so many corrections.”

“Sounds easy enough,” Hale said, though his tone suggested he knew nothing about this was going to be easy.

“Trust me,” Elias replied dryly, “the hard part is going to be the health crisis. This stuff is already in the local water table. Finding a solution to fix that is probably going to end up being a minor miracle. But I’ll loop in the science and medical departments on the ship—see what they can come up with for filtration, chelation, or a counter-agent for the vaccine matrix.”

He clipped his tricorder back to his belt and straightened.

“Let’s move. Nathan, Mike—start mapping the worst sections for reclamation priority. Hale, Mira—get your people to mark any known groundwater access points near these runs. We need to know where the powder’s leaching fastest.”

He tapped his combadge.

“Harlan to Arawyn. Stand by for incoming requisition on industrial replicator patterns and be advised we’re going to be pushing the transporter pattern buffer usage to its limits here soon. And let the Captain know I have something to report when she’s available.”

He cut the channel, then looked back at the team.

“Alright. Let’s get this mess cleaned up before it gets worse.”

--

Lieutenant Commander Elias Harlan
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Arawyn

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A whole cast of NPC's played by Jeff.

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