Stun Me Twice

[Ethan Neufeld 0]

Instinct and the startling recollection of being shot – for the second time in the same day – finally spurred Ethan to consciousness. Seven minutes after transport, he woke and sharply inhaled. Finding himself in an unfamiliar transporter room, of all places, was disconcerting at first. He'd expected to end up somewhere else entirely but inevitably on Zoalus. Surrounded by familiar faces – some of which hadn't gone to the Zoalus surface – it didn't take long to recognize that he was likely on a friend-controlled ship in orbit. No one present seemed to notice him wake: they were busy discussing how and where to transfer him for further medical evaluation and care.

 

Ethan rolled over his left side and on to his hands and knees, groaning mutedly for the effort. As before, his body ached and protested from the aftereffects of being stunned, but the pain was far more pronounced this time. He suspected that he had been out longer in this incident – cumulative effects of taking stun twice, and possibly a higher setting in the second shot. But, to his dismay, his spine felt like it was painfully shrinking, sending spasms into his right thigh and his right arm was disturbingly numb. He recognized the familiar feeling from years before. The drones must have hit him square in the back and when the energy overwhelmed his nervous system from that central point, the old injury had been aggravated.

 

Ethan pulled to his feet, using the bulkhead for support. Doctor Soora wasn't far behind, immediately inquiring in her dry, practiced way if he was all right.

 

"I'm fine," he answered minimally, "just disoriented." Soora seemed to accept this, though she'd undoubtedly want to give him a medical workup at some point.

 

Ethan glanced around the transporter room as the party slowly broke and filed out. He wasn't sure what ship they were aboard; he only knew it couldn't be the Qob or Verbistul. Neither ship possessed transporter technology. But the look of this ship was familiar: he was sure he'd seen something similar in a Starfleet museum once. Eventually someone told him it was the Capricorn and he smirked.

 

His thoughts turned over to the Zoalus surface. Ethan thought it was ironic that Pher had decided to talk to the drones. He'd considered doing something similar. Though he had intended to carry it out at a later point in the expedition, with less diplomatic tongue-in-cheek and far more definitive promises to retaliate if he didn't like how they responded. He wondered now if it would be worth it or if he'd been handed a bit of an advantage that he could use later.

 

Ethan was now confident that he could field an accurate guess on the modified drones' capabilities without looking at the tentacle they'd captured. Their superior abilities couldn't be attributed to altered sensor frequencies. Using active scans would have attracted a regular drone to the modified drones' activities sooner than was evident. They couldn't hide their weapons discharges, but they could delay attracting regular drone attention. Ethan decided that it couldn't have been more advanced environmental analyses, either. That sort of equipment could be extremely complex and the modifications looked jerry-rigged and too low-tech.

 

That only left one logical explanation, which also paralleled their audio capabilities and understanding of English in Ethan's opinion. It all made complete sense to him. It was very clever.

Edited August 29, 2011 by Ethan Neufeld