Star Bombed

[P. Fingh]

Here is a flash fiction involving Vulcan's bombing a star to light up.
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Someone yelled “bomb” just before it went off. It was a ritual exclamation, part of an undertaking of the Vulcans. Periodically over the past 5,000 years a small white dwarf star about to extinguish was bombed back to light. Bombing the star temporarily restored it’s capacity for nuclear reaction. The problem was first discovered by and delt with by the Vulcans. A nearby habitable planet had evolved intelligent life in the late stages of the star’s existence. The star’s light wasn’t very strong and it was somewhat unstable. The survival of the people on the planet depended on the star being periodically bombed back to light. The Vulcan “project” was in the process of being handed over to Star-Fleet. It was felt that Star-Fleet’s prospects as a long term organization caring for the fledgling civilization was better than the Vulcans. Star-fleet had more resources at it’s disposal.Unfortunately during the last bomb event, the star failed to re-ignite. Star-fleet personnel calculate that no amount of bombing the star will bring it back to light again.

 

[P. Fingh]

A special transport vessel for colony evacuation:
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The USS Fingh-Wheel

After encountering the Dysan sphere-craft and Borg cubes. Star-Fleet became concerned about it's design for larger space vehicles. One of the goals for a larger spacecraft was the efficient transport of people and goods, in some cases in emergencies, such as colony evacuations.
Star-Fleet initiated a project to produce a large-scale spacecraft using simplified manufacturing techniques. The first part of the project was a test spacecraft with skeleton crew & complement of 3,500. It was a flight vehicle bigger than most space-stations. For simplicity for their initial test project they decided on a ring-shape rather than the standard saucer with detached nacells approach.
The hull of the vehicle is made from a special form of compressed iron. Reinforced amorphous iron-fibre hull - constructed using a directed underground nuclear blast compressor. Several dozen meters of basically iron material are compressed into a wall six inches thick. Tiny imperfections in the blast force give the hull a stucko'ed appearance. That is to say the hull is not perfectly smooth. Because of the simplified manufacturing process for the hull, the hull had to be ring shaped in appearance. The hull was constructed underground as a single unit for safety and security reasons, then lifted into space. The hull material is a dull orange-red in color. But is painted over a dull grey.
The ringship - looks like a bicycle wheel with nuclear engine in the centre. The nuclear engine is an inverted warp-core engine. Nuclear reactions take place on the outside of the engine which looks like a tiny star. Uses artificial gravity but can be spun in emergencies for centrifugal gravity. The outer wall turns into the floor when spinning, so the décor on the wall is kept to a minimum.
There are only three primary decks in the spacecraft. Outer, middle, and inner. However the space-craft is a kilo-meter in diameter, so it is quite large.