Great Balls of Fire

The Nexus bombarded the massive, lionfish-like ship with its destructive rainbow of multicolored beams. Each beam targeted a different spot on the huge Fek'ihri Dreadnought, exploiting that beam's unique trait to maximize damage and pinpoint weaknesses.

The red phaser, green disruptor, aqua plasma, blue tetryon, and purple polaron beams targeted various systems—shield emitters, weapon arrays, impulse engines, torpedo launchers, and more—disabling, overloading, and ripping apart the Fek'ihri Dreadnought piece by piece.

Meanwhile, the orange antiproton, pink transphasic, and yellow kinetic beams sliced and shredded the metallic claws and spikes right off the main vessel, severing its deadliest weapons clean off.

"Nicely done, Veirik!" Anzyl cheered from his Captain's chair. "That was amazing!"

Grinning confidently from his Tactical station, Veirik responded, "I've had a lot of free time to plan exactly what I would do the next time we met one of these!" His hands blurred from rapid movements on the console. "Rip it apart, piece by piece, just like it does to its prey!"

Eroga interjected, "Our battle is glorious," then turned to her monitor, "but the Kentari are not so fortunate. Their ships are being slaughtered by the Fek'ihri drones."

Outside, the swarm of red-hot Fek'ihri drones circled the Nexus and the Kentari fleet. The Nexus remained unharmed due to its newly upgraded Dual-Cyclonic shielding. However, the Kentari vessels, with their substandard construction and every corner cut, were being ripped and torn apart as if they were made of soda can aluminum. In reality, aluminum would probably be an upgrade compared to the frail metal these vessels were lazily constructed with.

Eroga shouted from her console in horror, "It seems the Dreadnought is going to try to take out the Kentari vessels with it, sir!"

As the Nexus blasted the Dreadnought to pieces, the ship, with its last energy, erupted and flew past the Nexus into the crowd of smaller Kentari vessels.

"I'm reading a sharp spike in the Fek'ihri warp core!" Nolan shouted from his science station. "It's set for a warp core breach, sir!"

Realizing a warp core breach from a vessel that large was akin to a hydrogen bomb exploding in space, the Captain's face went blank with shock. "Helm! Evasive maneuvers! Full reverse! Get us out of here!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "Heluna! Tell all other ships to get the hell out of here!"

The Nexus's impulse engines erupted full blast as it attempted to pull a rapid 180-degree turn. The Fek'ihri Dreadnought whizzed past, sputtering in flames and trailing smoke as it barreled toward the planet. The Kentari fleet floated aimlessly, being ripped to shreds by the swarm of Fek'ihri drones. The dreadnought tore through the floating ships like a spiked snowplow, impaling the Kentari vessels as it continued its course. The engines sputtered and went out, the flames sparked and fizzled away, as the last of the ship's energy finally waned.

"Sir!" Nolan roared his saurian cry from his science station, "If that ship goes off on the planet, it will ignite the pollutants in the atmosphere, setting off a cascade reaction. The entire planet will erupt in a toxic ball of fire!"

Anzyl was speechless. The crew was speechless. They all watched in dreadful horror.

The Nexus, now too far to intervene, was at a safe distance, but not too late to stop the chain reaction.

The Fek'ihri Dreadnought entered the atmosphere of New Kentar, erupting in flames as it descended.

Anzyl's face was wrought with dread, horror, and guilt as he softly whispered to himself, "What have we done…"

Far away in high orbit above the putrid green and brown planet, the Nexus loomed helplessly, unable to change the planet's fate.

On the surface of the toxic planet, a flash of blinding light appeared, causing the entire crew of the Nexus bridge to cover their eyes.

From the epicenter of the flash, a ring of bright red and orange flared out—a wall of endless flame, a wave of engulfing destruction.

—

In a long-dead swamp, where dead trees withered and iridescent, dirty, and irradiated waters festered, rotting corpses of fauna long dead melted from the toxic chemicals in the air. Over the poisonous green horizon, a bright red light shone. A wall of blazing fire several miles high rushed over the mountains and landscape like a tsunami of hellish flames. In a blink of an eye, the dead swamp was engulfed in endless flames. The rotting corpses and withered plant life were immediately cremated in the pentuple-digit degree heat. The waters evaporated into nothing, and the landscape was cleared of any and all organic matter, disintegrating into nothing.

—

In a bustling city on New Kentar, the Kentari people went about their day, completely unaware of the doom cascading over the horizon. Skyscrapers miles high continued their work day unabated. Factories continued pumping toxic plumes of gas into the air. Life on the streets continued as the Kentari citizenry remained oblivious to everything outside their walls. The street littered with every sort of trash, filth, and refuse blew in the wind as a heat wave approached.

With no governmental warning issued or sounded, the city landscape was immediately destroyed by the cascade of destructive flames. The skyscrapers were blown into shreds, factories obliterated into nothing, and the citizenry never felt a thing as the disintegrating heat wave instantly vaporized all without mercy.

—

"By the elements…" Heluna gasped in her chair as the crew of the Nexus watched the end of New Kentar before their eyes.

The toxic and polluted world, succumbing to its own actions and reaping what it sowed, although no one aboard wished for it to happen.

In a matter of seconds, the entire surface of New Kentar was one bright, red, burning fireball, now resembling a star rather than a planet that once supported lush ecosystems and life.

"Science…" Anzyl spoke softly, sitting in his chair, "Life signs?"

"None, sir…" Nolan shook his head. "New Kentar once had a population of over 15 billion."

"Sir," Heluna spoke up, wiping the tears from her cheek, her hand on her communications earpiece, "Incoming hail from the Reskava."

"Audio only," Anzyl hauntingly replied, his eyes glued to the fireball of a planet before him.

"Captain," Kumaarke's shocked and horrified voice came over the speakers, "We saw everything. It… I… I want to let you know it was not your fault. It was the Fek'ihri and the Kentari's… DAMN atmosphere they made!" The sound of her fist banging on the table echoed through the audio. "A warp core breach on a surface is bad, but it's never destroyed an entire planet before!" she shouted in anger. "But, it was not your fault." She composed herself. "You have the Reskava and Rentari as full eyewitnesses, and our scans caught everything. There was nothing you could do, and nothing to be done. Now… Now we…" her voice trailed off in distraught thought as she tried to think of what to do.

"Science, continue scanning," Anzyl put his hand on his mouth, "scan for any sign of life, any organic that made it. Anything."

Nolan slowly shook his head. "I have been, sir. Nothing."

The crew was left speechless as they watched the flames of the planet dim down, leaving a black and burnt crust of a planet.

Then Kumaarke's voice came over the comms, as the communication link was still open. "Science…" she spoke softly and solemnly, "Request to add the Kentari race to the Galactic Endangered Species list."