What are possible catastrophes on a space station?
I'm working on a passage of my SciFi novel where my current primary character is escaping from a highly secure, enemy military, space station. I would like him to cause some sort of catastrophe to both cover his tracks and cause significant damage.
The damage does not have to be explosive, but I have already explained that there is no way to sneak any explosive or contraband into the station. I have been struggling to think of some way that he could compromise the life support because it is a large station with independent sections. The same issue is in the way of explosive decompression as sections are easily sealed off.
I then thought some sort of reactor meltdown would work, but my civilization primarily uses fusion reactors which, after doing some research, can't really meltdown and the closest they get to an explosion is more similar to the explosion of an MRI machine (not so impressive). A radiation leak might be a good compromise, but I am not sure how exactly that might happen.
How he can cause a catastrophe to cover his tracks and cause significant damage on the space station?
Edit: More details on the space station. It is suppose to be the center of military intelligence and functions essentially like a cross between CIA headquarters and the Pentagon.
Excerpt: "The station was essentially a stationary drum encased by four, counter-rotating rings. What could be considered the base of the drum faced away from the planet and acted much like a massive satellite dish. The other end of the station directly transmitted information to and from the surface."
My character is currently located in a service corridor within the last ring, furthest from the planet. He was not expecting to need immediate escape as his mission was intended to be long term insurgency.
Addition:
For anyone interested, here is a link to an early version of the chapter. It has been edited a few times and some parts have been changed to improve the flow of the story, but it's roughly the same for the most part. The part where this event takes place is at the end of the chapter, but please read the whole thing and let me know what you think.
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/91074. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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