Bombing of BSL-500

From FEInfobase

The Bombing of BSL-500 was an act of terrorism against the Federation that was perputrated by a Founder infiltrator during the Dominion War. BSL-500 was a Bolaris Space Ways spaceliner en route to a summit meeting being held by the members of the Federation Alliance shortly after the battle to retake Deep Space Nine had been won. All 158 passengers and crew aboard were killed, including 12 children, and Federation Councilmember Grixx Ashon, a Bolian represenitive known for his strict pacifist voting record. It is beleved that the Dominion wished to impress upon the Allies how precarious thier position remained, even after thier recent victory, although the Dominion denys involvement with the attack and counters the charge with alleged Federation and Klingon war crimes.

The mechanism of the bomb itself was an ingenious sabotauge of the deuterium fuel tanks for the impulse reactors. A chemical analysis of the debries determined that an unknown chemical had been placed in the starboard tanks, one that apparantly caused the surrounding deuterium to become unstable. When the tainted fuel was fed into the reactor, it exploded, ripping the passenger cabin apart from stern to bow, and venting the entire ship's atmosphere into space in a matter of seconds. To sucessfully taint a fuel supply like that, especially during a time of hightened security measures, required a skillful hacking of the ship's flight computer, as well as a surreptitious infiltration of the mantianance hanger where the ship was serviced on the day before the flight. Founder inflitrators had proven themselves adept that the skills required for both tasks.

The aftermath of the bombing had the opposite effect of what the Dominion intended, only furthering the resolve of the Allies to fight the war to a victorious conclusion. By early 2404, the incident had more or less faded from public memory, becoming another bloody footnote to a violent time.