We Came; We Lost; Now We're Prisoners

[Ethan Neufeld 0]

There’s a term for thinking of a more appropriate or clever response after it’s too late to say it: l'esprit de l'escalier.

 

It’d been a long time since Ethan felt like he’d thought of the right thing to say too late. But, as he glanced across the locked down mess at Pher talking on her ODRI, Ethan was keenly aware that he had missed the opportunity by light-years.

 

Summarize it in two sentences, she’d said. With a private cringe he realized that he should have replied with finality, “We came. We lost.” Cynical truth, but it would have minimized what happened next: no inquisition; no debate; no demoralizing sense of fruitlessness. He could have shrugged if she’d asked him to explicate and left it at that. He’d be on his way to a shower and his bunk right now; not trapped in this compartment by a paranoid raider, with Pher’s unspoken attribution of insubordination and wanton disregard leaving a foul aftertaste in his mouth.

 

His impression of her thoughts had been confirmed, but she was off by his reckoning. He’d complied with her directive banning powered gear without protest; only in the most exigent circumstances of danger had he bent it. His willingness to disregard his own discretion -- carry cold weapons as they directed -- was a testament to his compliance. Conversely, when they could have searched for Sal on foot, Pher had acted independently and ignored her directive as it suited her; she was ultimately the one responsible for the result. She was the one who had caused negative results by breaking her own protocol. Yet he was the one who was too eager to alter protocol? She was blaming him? Incredible.

 

That he’d given into the instinct to defend his opinions and actions, however, after he’d earlier decided that any argument with Pher was pointless, was uncharacteristic. He obviously wasn’t fairing with the frustration, fatigue and exhausting pain as well as he liked.

 

What a drag; all this trouble for a lousy bunch of parasites.

 

As he saw it, Pher’s perceptions of him had been shaped by poor communication and a lack of desire to fully integrate him into their team. If Pher had really wanted to cut down on bad drone encounters, she should have stopped making unilateral decisions and relying on their ODRIs. They were lucky, in his opinion, that only two team members had been shot and on stun. That she’d tried to lend weak merit to his methods -- as she thought she understood them -- was absurdly counter to her inflexible sense of prerogative. Truthfully, he felt like he was beyond a snowball’s chance to demonstrate the soundness of his reasoning or that he was equally capable of discretion. They didn’t and probably never would see eye-to-eye.

 

But why should he care if Pher thought he was inept? It didn’t matter and, when he had no intention of sticking around, discussing or dwelling on grievances with this crew any longer would be a waste of energy. Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears. The mission was over and they could hang his recommendations for all he cared. He was alive and well; he still had his objective. I’m not here to impress anyone; I’m here to do a job.

 

Inconveniently, with the shuttle due from the Verbistul at any moment, Ford was getting in the way. There was no swift solution for that problem, so what would Pher’s protocol be in this case? He wondered.

 

Initially, she had suggested shooting through the door and it was no secret that Ethan had expressed mild consternation when he’d seen her unsling her grenade-launcher mounted rifle. She thought Ethan was the ‘excitable’ one, yet could jump from peremptory over-cautiousness to all but aggressively overreacting in the blink of a transporter? Fortunately, she’d since switched tactics and was trying to call the ship’s Captain for help. It wasn’t the bigger drawbacks that stopped her from actually shooting the door. Soora had voiced reservations and Pher had reconsidered, citing a concern that setting off alarms wasn’t subtle enough. But if getting out was that imperative, Ethan felt alarms -- or a captor’s threats -- were generally immaterial. That notwithstanding, Ethan personally wasn’t ready or desperate enough to start using explosives on a door in such a tight space, nor attempt phasing it when no one else in the compartment was ready. He saw no immediate danger or need get out---for the moment. It seemed Ford wanted living prisoners to interrogate and Ethan was willing to patiently see where things went. Contradiction?

 

No, the situation merely demanded a different response than Zoalus in Ethan’s mind. As it’d always been, Ethan’s actions were motivated by trained discretion and not excessive caution or zeal. In this case, he was interested more in listening to the crazed raider carry on than making a hasty, uninformed attempt to escape. He’d felt early on that the hostiles on Zoalus wouldn’t respect diplomatic attempts; just force and the off-switch -- hence his desire to secure their advantage while they could -- and nothing had yet proved him wrong. But there was no reason to overlook the possibility of talking their way out of here; likewise, Ford might have some enlightening things to say. If they played it smart, they might gain a stronger ally in Tomar or even Ford; whereas shooting their way out would guarantee pushing a portion of the Capricorn’s crew from the fence into enemies.

 

Ethan casually leaned against the sideboard and stuffed his left hand into a pocket, using the other hand to reset his thumb break before resting on his holstered pistol. He hadn’t sought a part in the murder investigation earlier and, had Ford begun any later, he would have missed this. Any lingering issue with the surface team sunk completely from his care as he paid Ford and Troy his full attention.

 

Ford was convinced the Qob’s bionic engineer was some kind of saboteur; that was an ironic twist. Only a few days earlier, when the Capricorn had attacked the expedition, he had remarked to Shane: We all have secrets. He’d meant it as a veiled warning. Ethan couldn’t begin to speculate if Ford was right or wrong in this case, but he now had Ethan’s curiosity piqued.

 

One thing was certain, at any rate: the Capricorn was a full-on cluster fitting for Zoalus. Talk about stepping out of the fire---into a bigger fire.

Edited September 13, 2011 by Ethan Neufeld