Office of Crimson Moon, Manager of BSPS

When the telephone goes off with only a few minutes before a highly sensitive test is about to begin, it's rarely ever good news. This was the feeling in Crimson Moon's heart when the telephone rang with only 15 minutes before the test was due to start. He picked it up. "Hello?"

"Ah, there you are! Good you got to the phone so fast. Everything going well?"

"Yes sir. As a matter of fact, we are about to begin the turbine test on Reactor 4."

"I'm afraid you'll need to hold the test. The power station at Meridian Valley has unexpectedly gone down- something about a fault with one of the turbines that means they had to bring one of their reactors offline. I need you to postpone your test until we can get Meridian Valley back up to power."

"But we've already started slowing down the reactor, and the core will start to have xenon buildup. How long until they can get running again?"

"We don't know. Try to raise power levels and burn the xenon off." The line then abruptly clicked shut, indicating the call was over.

Crimson Moon sighed. "Just trust the idiots at Meridian Valley to break their toys just when we need to do something important. I'll need to tell them the test is off. Here's hoping Sky Chaser remembered to re-enable the security protocols on the reactor itself." He stepped out of his office, and glanced briefly at a dosimeter to ensure it was safe for him to go.

Vanhoover University Radiological Department, Technical Research Center

I hurried into the research room, keen to find out more about this incident. Despite the distrust that seemed to exist between the races, there was some data sharing between us to ensure a level of transparency. After all, if there was a serious problem with a design, the other races would surely tell us to ensure there would be no repeat. Right?

I dived onto the monitor and began my search, starting with typing 'CGMR Reactor stability issue' to start. The only problem was this returned nothing, almost as if there was no such problem.

I sighed. This would need more work to sort out. I decided to try sorting through all the information on the CGMR model manually, to see if that returned any results. The system returned an awful lot of results, none of them seeming to match what I was looking for, so I started working my way through them systematically. This process took me quite a while, to the point my eyes were starting to feel awkward from all the screen use. I took a break from looking to grab a quick coffee, then returned to my work a few minutes later.

But as I looked at the documents, I noticed something strange. The records seemed to have vital bits of data missing, as if they were never there. Things just weren't adding up at all.

I eventually found luck, however. I came across some documents referring to an incident near Stalliongrad a few months ago which had been shared on the network. Most of the document was redacted, making it virtually unusable, but there was something that attracted my attention. The end of the document made reference to large numbers of control rods having been removed from the reactor core, which had led to severe instability when running. Not very surprising, as so few rods in the core would have left the reactor almost impossible to control. However, that was as much as I could glean. The paperwork gave no indication of precisely how many rods had been removed, or the number of fuel channels that were available to start with. I tried to make an educated guess based on my knowledge of other reactors, but my best guess was a reactor getting stuck in a xenon pit and the personnel trying to restart it without waiting for the substance to decay away first.

I turned to my notes to see if anything like this had been reported elsewhere. However, despite my best efforts, all other unicorn documents related to this model were so heavily redacted they were useless. What was the point of issuing documents if they then blacked the majority of them out?

I was unsettled more than relieved. I knew that, anywhere in the world where one of those reactors was running, there was the possibility of them turning into a bomb. But who would be stupid enough to attempt a restart like that?

Bridlewood Spectra Power Station, Control Room for Reactor IV

It was around midnight that the test had been rescheduled, and Deputy Chief Engineer Sky Chaser was annoyed. Not least because administration had re-arranged the test without good reason in his mind, but that he'd had to come in on his day off to oversee it due to unforseen circumstances. "Just tust Wild Strikes to fall ill at the worst possible moment. I bet he did it to get out of work."

He looked over to Scarlet Shadow. "How are we looking on power generation?"

"1500 Megawatts and sustained," the Earth Pony replied. "Reactor core is currently stable, but I'm concerned about the reactor safe-"

"Good," Sky Chaser replied. "Lucky Light, are we on schedule to start the test?"

"Yes sir," the Unicorn answered. "Backup generators and turbines read as normal. Systems are good to go."

"Astral Thunder, any problems to report?"

"Well," the Pegasus began, her eyes looking nervously around the room, "the previous shift reported some issues with core speed, but we should be able to burn it off if we keep running at current speed, and I haven't had any problems thus far."

"Excellent," Sky Chaser. "Remember you lot, safety first. This is a safety test, after all. Wouldn't want anything to go wrong." He took up his position at the command panel, and checked the readings for himself. "Excellent. Everything checks out. Start running down reactor power to 1000 Megawatts, preferably lower to ensure a better response from the pumps."

"Understood," Lucky Light said. "Lowering control rods to slow down reaction."

With a series of clicks and whirrs, the displays began to update to show the various status positions of the rods as they dropped into place. On the other side of the room, the power gauge began to fall rapidly. Too quickly.

The numbers began to plummet.

"We're losing power rapidly!" Scarlet Shadow shouted. "Try and equalise the core!"

Lucky Light tried some adjustments to try and increase and maintain power, but the numbers on the monitors continued to drop rapidly.

"There's no way this can be right," Astral Thunder said, consulting her gauge. "We should be able to maintain the reaction unless..." he tailed off.

Sky Chaser caught onto this. "Unless what?"

Power had dropped to under 500 Megawatts and continued to fall.

"Unless there's something in the core that's preventing the reaction from happening."

No matter how many adjustments he made to the core, Lucky Light could not get power to rise, and the reactor power reading dropped constantly until the numbers flatlined at around 10 Megawatts. The reactor, for all intents and purposes, had stopped.

Sky Chaser got out of the control panel section of the room and trotted over to Scarlet Shadow. He looked cross. "You've stalled the reactor, you fucking idiot," he said. "How are we supposed to run the test now? How the Tartarus did any of you get a job here?"

"Xenon levels in the core," Astral Thunder said. "That's what is causing the reaction to grind to a halt. We need to wait for that to burn off before we can restart the reactor."

There was a momentary silence. Then Sky Chaser responded. "Raise the power."

"What?"

"I know you're stupid, I didn't realise you were deaf too. Raise the power."

"I won't. It's not safe," Lucky Light stammered. "We can't safely restart with the poisoning-"

"I don't give a shit about the xenon levels!" Sky Chaser snapped. "We are doing this test and that is final. Raise the power."

Scarlet Shadow produced a clipboard on her hoof. "Sir, I request that you write down your order fir-"

"Oh, are you blind as well?"

"With all due respect, I thi-"

"With all respect means you shut the fuck up and do your job. Get that power raised. I won't ask you again."

Lucky Light shook in fright as he began lifting control rods out of the core. More and more of them were lifted as the numbers began to rise.

Soon, the reaction was up to speed once again, then the numbers began to climb out of control. "What's happening now?" Scarlet Shadow called. Control panels started to light up and beep loudly, producing a cacophany of terror.

"Reactor power rising uncontrollably!" Astral Thunder called. "Drop the rods! DROP THE RODS!"

Scarlet Shadow dashed over to another panel, tore a cap free of its housing to reveal a button marked SCRAM. Sirens screamed throughout the plant as she slammed the button down.

She hoped it would be enough.

Author's Note

Glossary of Terms

Xenon poisoning-A byproduct of poorly handled spectra reactions. This is a problem as xenon buildup can halt a reaction in its tracks.
Control rod-a device used for speeding up and slowing down spectra reactors, allowing power output to be varied.
SCRAM-Acronym for Safety Control Rod Activation Mechanism.