Li Weiying Disaster

The Li Weiying Disaster was a catastrophic disaster that took place aboard the Li Weiying Space Station in June 2047 and resulted in its deorbiting. The disaster was caused by a classified experiment that was installed in the station's science wing by Helios Aerospace, which destabilised the station's fusion reactor. Corporate security invaded the station by force, attempting a cover-up, but some of the engineers fought back, managing to drive them off and escape on a passing ship before the station crashed.

Background

The Blackstar experiment was an experimental and top secret project aboard the Li Weiying put in place by Helios' Aerospace division. Its purpose was to open a tiny bridge to collect data safely away from Earth. Due to the power required by the experiment, it was set up with a direct link to the station's fusion reactor.

Helios had already been given more access to the station's systems than what should have been permitted by the CNSA. Two weeks prior to the incident, Helios ground personnel made adjustments to the reactor heat exchanger parameters, allowing them to run at unsafe levels to deal with power surges by the experiment, and blocking all warning messages from the reactor safety systems to engineering teams. These changes would prove fatal to the station.

Beginning

At approximately 14:31 UTC on 17 Jun 2047, a power surge from Helios' experimental Blackstar core caused Helios ground personnel to ramp up the station fusion reactor to accommodate. Concurrently, Station duty engineers Michael Holt, Ryan Schofield, Katie Rowe and Li Juan noticed the failure of auxiliary cooling pump 3, and visited the Auxiliary Reactor Wing to investigate.

Though it was not known at the time, this event sealed the fate of the station. Excess temperatures caused corrosion already built up in reactor heat exchanger 2 to flake off and become lodged in the auxiliary pumps. At 14:50, the subsequent spike in temperature caused a cascade failure and the failure of all coolant pumps.

At 14:52, the excess pressure generated from the hot coolant caused a pipe flange in the auxiliary wing to rupture, flooding the room and beginning to empty the loop. During this time, members of the duty maintenance team were able to enter the reactor control room, initiating an emergency SCRAM. After this, only 12 hours of reserve power remained in the batteries to run life support systems.

Station invasion

As Helios command personnel were made aware of the incident and realised the potential damage to their reputation should the disaster go public, they decided to initiate a cover-up by detaining all witnesses. At approximately 15:10, they shut down the station's communications system using an administrative override, preventing any conversations with ground control.

At 15:45, a Helios military corvette docked with the station, invading and destroying the control room. Soldiers impersonating a station commander told engineers to remain in place for rescue; however they became suspicious and chose to disobey the falsified directions. Instead, the engineers continued to attempt to restart the reactor, thinking this would restore comm systems.

While the reactor's Helium magnets were being restored from the quench, the engineers decided to investigate the physics module which they suspected was the cause of the accident. This required an EVA. At this time, many other members of station personnel began to depart via evacuation pods, as they were forced to do so by members of Helios.

Lab X deorbit

At approximately 16:40, members of the Engineering team entered the Science wing, locating Lab X, which was protected by an automatic chaingun turret. Using an electromagnet located in one of the annex labs, they managed to destructively disable the turret; however, the laboratory door - a Titan Assault Door with an adjacent K-Lock - stood in their way.

Though the engineers were unable to directly bypass the locking mechanism, they were able to reprogram illegal nanobots in a nearby lab to act as a rudimentary lockpick; bypassing the K-Lock and opening the door. The breach of the door, however, activated an alarm system and began an automatic deorbiting procedure which would detach the module in 10 minutes.

In the room, the engineers noticed the Blackstar device - a complex data logger connected to the core, which displayed a core overload. On observation, multiple containment rings had failed, caused by a thermal runaway. A failsafe self-destruct, initiated eight hours ago, had been unsuccessful. The monitoring links to Helios ground control had been severed.

Though the engineers were not able to decrypt any of the logged data, they took the hard drives from the machine and exited before the module deorbited. As the module began re-entry, it exploded, sending shrapnel backwards which destroyed the Hydroponics module and caused the station to begin to drift.

Helios ambush

As the team made it back to the engineering module, they attempted to get to the navigation systems to correct the station's orbit. As they reached the command deck they realised it had been destroyed by bullets, and they were ambushed by a Helios security team.

Nevertheless, inexperienced with Zero-G combat, the team managed to overpower the Helios soldiers, and created a hull breach which sucked them out into space. They then managed to regain communications with part of the station, and realised there were people still stuck in Wing 3; performing a course correction burn before heading there to attempt a rescue.

Evacuation

The team managed to make it off the station with the remaining survivors, launching the escape pods just as more pieces of the structure began to break off and burn up in the atmosphere. The station eventually disintegrated over the Pacific Ocean. The engineers presented the evidence they collected to the Interdimensional Research Treaty Organisation (IRTO), and soon after, heavy sanctions were laid on Helios by the Coalition for violations of the Einstein-Rosen Accords in their reckless experimentation. The corporation was also suspended from all further CNSA missions and replaced by Paradigm.