Blindsided

[Ethan Neufeld 0]

Blindsided, Alex numbly watched opportunity walk away. Slowly processing what had occurred, she stared down the empty corridor and chagrin began to creep beneath her skin. Her fists tightened into balls and, whipping about, she stomped back into the brig. Not an ounce of forethought could have stopped her as she unleashed her fury on the first, unlucky thing to cross her path. She savagely kicked the waste can sitting beside the desk and it crumpled against the adjacent bulkhead, contents scattering.

 

She felt the eyes in the brig immediately fix on the commotion; while his former guards appeared amused or disparaging, Tomar looked insightful, almost sympathetic.

 

“Shut up,” she hissed, glaring at the Bajoran.

 

“Sir!” an excited voice called from the door; “everything okay?” It was the pair of Verbistul security she had called to cover the brig and free her for other tasks. “We heard a loud noise---”

 

Alex lowered her head as she looked at the dented can, shadowing her face. “Everything’s fine,” she tightly answered, reigning in her anger for the moment. Her crewmates nodded and holstered their weapons, unaware of the battered can that was lying on the floor beyond her.

 

Still refusing to make eye-contact, she leaned back against the desk. “Captain Tomar Raj,” she explained, pointing at the Bajoran. “Keep an eye on ‘em. Captain Maxwell’s expectin’ a jail break from the pirates, so stay frosty.”

 

 

 

Things were not remotely going to plan. No surprise there, but it would take more to knock Ethan off balance. He was accustomed to these conditions, and he hadn’t bothered to count the times it had happened in the past due to equipment failures, unexpected changes in objective and the like. Given the rarity of transporters in Bull’s Head, he hadn’t planned on using one, nor had he planned on reconnoitering within hours of the expedition’s departure deadline: case in point. Yet, deviation from his plans notwithstanding, it was the countless contingencies he had run and the thorough preparations he had made in the preceding weeks, which would make the mission successful. He was confident of it. It was simply a matter of exchanging one form of transportation for another, and narrowing his focus to fit into the limited time Maxwell was willing to grant him. It could be done with an acceptable margin for error. He had to accept deviations, but that existing groundwork kept him at the ready, able to adapt and proceed on short notice under any circumstances short of being disabled. The gear he had taken with him as a member of the Qob’s shore party was the same gear he needed for his mission. Even swapping Kelin for Alex was easily absorbed into situation, as Alex had worked parallel scenarios into Verbistul’s security drills under the guise of preparing for the expedition. That those drills might have contributed to the success of Maxwell’s boarding parties didn’t escape him.

 

There was one crucial piece of preparation that remained: analyzing the Qob’s sensor data. Ethan had traveled to Zoalus without knowing the location of his objective; he couldn’t learn it or set his approach without that data. Though Maxwell was resentful and largely uncooperative, getting the data from Lazarus had been painless. But Ethan had hoped for hours if not days and the unwitting assistance of people like Rosetto and Macen to analyze it. He had ten minutes at best to do it all solo. Added to that problem was the Capricorn’s computer core, which was still recovering from an EMP, and that he wanted to keep the data on his objective secure. A borrowed ODRI was the short answer.

 

In Ethan’s perspective, the entire situation on the Capricorn had been too coincidental, and boarding parties from the Verbistul confirmed to Ethan what he’d begun to suspect. Captain Maxwell was after the Capricorn. Grotte had been his puppet; perhaps from the very beginning. Ethan suspected intensions were to undermine relations between Tomar’s people and the Qob; convince the Qob to abandon the pirates or deliver them to the mercy of the Lucky Hand and Maxwell. At the extreme, Grotte had simply tried to kill everyone, but the underlying aim was to remove the Qob, remove Joe Manning’s influence from the Capricorn. Save for those factors Maxwell hadn’t anticipated, like Pher’s unfailing quest for a ceasefire and Alex’s excitability, it almost worked.

 

But when Maxwell’s coup de maitre failed, he swiftly recovered and fell back to direct force. That worked -- not counting the imminent hiccup known as Troy and Byblos that was likely to provoke a coup de grace. Shortly after word of the Verbistul’s boarding parties filtered down, Ethan had anticipated that Main Engineering would be one of their primary targets and left. Sure enough, Markus and Grotte were there when Ethan later returned.

 

But he wasn’t trying to hide from them. Ethan had needed only a moment to verify the game plan with Alex; prevent her from indiscriminately siding against her crewmates and those who would ultimately control the Capricorn. He was anticipating that Maxwell would want to leave the system once he’d secured the Capricorn. He knew chances were slim that he’d find another flight to Zoalus within the next year; he needed Maxwell’s cooperation if he was going to secure his objective before the expedition was completely scrapped. Asserting his cooperation with Markus in Engineering, he borrowed an ODRI from one of the Verbistul crew under the guise of using it to search for hiding pirates. From there he had appeared on the bridge to discuss the situation with Maxwell and negotiate some time for his objective; the rest was recent history.

 

Back in the old ship’s goat locker where he had earlier claimed a bunk, Ethan closed and locked the door to the compartment. He looked at his watch; two hours and they were already ticking. He didn’t have time to take the shower he wanted or catch up on the missed sleep he needed. He hadn’t slept on Zoalus or yet managed to sleep on the Capricorn. He was nearing forty-eight straight, waking hours without a foreseeable break in the near future. It was ironic: in spite of his efforts to help, he hadn’t been that instrumental during the incident with Ford. If he’d stayed in his bunk rather than promptly turning in his report, he might have avoided Pher and been able to sleep through Ford’s paranoia. But he was also a light sleeper. His back was still hurting and, occasionally, his arm would tingle from a half-pinched nerve. A smarter man would have asked for pain killers and sleep aids, but there was no sense in stopping now. He couldn’t leave his objective unfinished.

 

Pulling the borrowed ODRI from the thigh pocket in which he’d tucked it, he turned on the device and faintly frowned. Not enough memory. He deliberated for a few seconds and then speed-dumped it into the Capricorn’s as yet unstable computer core before wiping the ODRI’s internal memory. It was the least he could do for the owner who had seen his ODRI for the last time.

 

Ethan plugged the Qob’s orbital data into the cleaned ODRI with only a few bytes to spare. Using the timeline in his detailed after-action report, he tagged his only lead: the first mod drone they had encountered. He entered a few additional criteria and then the ODRI performed much of the work, tracing the mod drone through thousands of images at a pace beyond Ethan’s capability. It still took five minutes before it had narrowed down the likely location of his objective, accompanied by a sharp warning that the ODRI was running out of memory. The method obviously wasn’t foolproof, but enough to get him by on a tight schedule.

 

Ethan studied the image for a moment and then set the device aside. Pulling out a thinly laminated, topographical map from a pouch on his carrier, he laid it open on the table. He circled a building in the port city that stood a few hundred meters south of the river, near the region explored by the Qob-lead shore party. He studied the surrounding area for another moment and consulted the ODRI; then made a second mark and third mark on his map, noting the coordinates. Folding the map so that his objective faced out, he put it away and grabbed the ODRI. He turned the device off and eyed it briefly.

 

Borrow had been a loose usage. He couldn’t return the ODRI or leave it lying around for someone to find; he couldn’t guarantee that the information would be irretrievable if he wiped the memory. But attempting to destroy it might attract unwanted attention. He’d lose it somewhere on Zoalus. He pulled the power cell and dropped the ill-fated ODRI back into his thigh pocket. Picking up the remainder of his gear, he shut off the lights as he quietly left the compartment.

 

Kelin and Alex were waiting outside the transporter room when Ethan arrived.

 

“Kelin,” Ethan greeted with a nod. “Here, put this on.”

 

Kelin took the object, staring at the coiled mess of wires in his hand. Baffled by its purpose and design, he glanced at Ethan and noticed for the first time that a similar contraption sitting on his head. Gingerly, he did the same.

 

Alex screwed up her face and scoffed. “You look ridiculous.”

 

“What is it?” Kelin asked.

 

“Something the Qob put together to absorb Delta Waves,” Ethan briefly explained. It was just another thing Ethan had been forced to conveniently borrow, given the short time he had to accomplish his mission. But, since Chris had taken a shower prior to their debriefing with Joe, at least one of Troy’s hats had been left lying around in an empty berth and Ethan had scrounged it on his way to the transporter.

 

“There are two types of drones. These ‘hats’ will prevent the first type from detecting us, but stay frosty and don’t attract their attention; they’re about a few hundred to one and they’ll recon you by fire. The second type is modified and probably relies on cameras and audio gear to compliment their sensors. They’ll see us coming, so we’ll have to play this right, but they're also fewer in number: about four to one. I suspect they’re controlled remotely by a person or persons guarding our objective.”

 

“Wait, you’re sayin’ they, like, took control of a bunch of drones?” Alex piped up.

 

“Explains the unusual behavior we witnessed, and it’s what I’d do if I were stuck on this planet and wanted to stay hidden.” Alex and Kelin were unfamiliar with the details of the Qob’s expedition to the surface, but Ethan would have to explain later.

 

He pulled out his map, showing Kelin the marks he had made. “We’ve only got about another half hour of daylight. That could work to our advantage: the modified drones retreat to this building at night. It’s possible that they don’t have night-vision capabilities, but we’ll assume they do. That building is ‘Bravo’ and contains our objective ‘Mike’. If we can locate ‘Mike’, we’ll take samples and set charges to blow the place. We’ll have about forty-five minutes to recon it by sight; we can’t risk using tricorders. We’ll transport in here at ‘Alfa’ and hike our way in to ‘Bravo’. I’ll take point. Our extraction point’s here at ‘Charlie’. Weapons are hot and free, but use discretion and be ready for a battle royal when you do, because it’ll bring the entire planet’s defenses down on our position.” There was a hit of nervousness in Kelin’s expression as he nodded in understanding.

 

Stuffing the map back in his pocket, Ethan looked at Alex. “Lazarus has our primary frequency; the usual will be our emergency channel. I’ll send a burst when we hit our first check-points and for extraction. When I do, it’ll attract drones; be ready to vacate the area ASAP.” He briefly glanced at Kelin and then returned to Alex. “We’ll maintain silence for the rest, but I’ll have my radio on. Keep us updated.” He waited a beat and then added: “Well be at the extraction point at 1745. If we’re late, stall Maxwell.”

 

“Copy,” Alex firmly answered with a nod.

 

“Ready?” Ethan asked Kelin.

 

Kelin was a good kid, but he had the air of a naive college freshman and almost looked pale, if that was possible for an Andorian. “Yes,” he answered, perhaps softer than he’d intended.

 

Ethan nodded with a sympathetic smile. “Let’s go.” He turned and moved to enter the transporter room, but feeling a hand on his arm, Ethan stopped and calmly returned Alex’s intense gaze. Kelin entered alone.

 

Alex had thought about it incessantly for the last ten minutes and felt like it would kill her if she didn’t know. There had to be more to this switch up than what Ethan told her. “Did I screw up?” she asked under her breath. She could almost hear the private sigh as Ethan looked at her.

 

“We’ll talk about it later,” he answered minimally, and entered the transporter room.

 

“You mean ‘yes’,” Alex sourly murmured before following him.

 

 

 

The transporter hummed and materialized into an enveloping light show as it reconstructed Ethan and Kelin from the atomic level on the surface of Zoalus. Released by the beam in the same crouching, low-ready positions in which they’d begun on the Capricorn’s transporter pad, Ethan quickly checked the one hundred eighty degree AOR to his front as Kelin did the same at his back. Their radios were on and their firearms running hot. Acting on his personal conclusions, Ethan was confident the internal EM shielding of their radios and firearms would prevent them from being detected unless transmitting or fired. If he was right, they might mitigate what actions an aggressor could take against them. If he was wrong, it would be a short mission.

 

They had inserted into a portion of the port city that was apparently well-maintained by the Zoalus drones. A paved, divided street stretched north and south to the west of their position, and was lined on both sides with a sleek, cobble-stone footpath that branched off to doors and down the gaps between buildings. There were buildings to the south for as far as the eye could see; a kilometer to the north, the street transitioned to a bridge that spanned the river and lead to more endless buildings on the other side. Most of the buildings were two or three stories tall, though those closest to the river were apparently restricted to a signal story. Immaculate, deep-hued lawns covered any open, unpaved ground in the area, and some were bordered by tall, squared hedges. It had the appearance of a business district, but on an alien world you couldn’t be sure. The area was largely deserted, at any rate; the drones had finished business for the day.

 

Ethan had taken advantage of a narrow gap between buildings and fenced by hedges to visibly conceal their beam in. Transporters weren’t always Ethan’s first choice; the element of surprise could take a negative swing for the insertion. But, like everything else, there were practices to minimize the risk. And, given the defensive response to aerial probes, it was slightly better than the point they could have made fast roping from a noisy shuttle. Generally, transporters were detected indirectly when active sensors reported objects or people materializing out of thin air. Unless a sensor was placed in the beam’s path, the chances that the transporter itself -- a tight, directional signal -- would be detected by sensors were significantly minimized. The ‘hats’ did the rest of the work, hiding their sudden appearance from the planetary sensor network.

 

Certain that the area was clear and drones weren’t already rushing their position, Ethan glanced at Kelin. Ethan had mentally noted the next few spots where they’d take cover as they worked toward their objective and pointed toward the first. The young man nodded that he was ready and Ethan reached up to his throat mic.

 

“Alfa,” he radioed, signaling that transport had been successful and they were on the move.

 

Before receiving an acknowledgement, he’d tapped Kelin on the shoulder and they moved out; Ethan taking point and Kelin watching their six. If drones showed up, Ethan imagined the regulars would arrive first and start an exhaustive, routine scan of the area, consuming time while they ran through a complicated decision-making process like before. The modified drone or drones would observe from a safe distance. If they managed to pick up a trail on the footpath, it would be through diminishing infrared signals and not until the team had gained a considerable lead.

 

But Ethan held some doubt that his transmission would attract the regular drones at all. The modified drones and their controllers had managed to subsist beneath the planetary defenses, which meant the regular drones had either ignored their radio transmissions or failed to triangulate them. In most cases, regular drones seemed to leave their modified counterparts alone until provoked. Still, the team didn’t stick around to see if drones converged on their insertion point after Ethan’s transmission. Nor did they rush from the area. Slow is smooth; smooth is fast; fast is fatal.

 

Advancing through the urban terrain smoothly, block by block, it took them roughly fifteen minutes before ‘Bravo’ was in sight across the street. It was a single-story, seashell colored building with a subtly domed roof. The windows facing the street were opaque, blocked by heavy curtains or something similar. They didn’t want to cross the street in sight of the windows if they could choose another approach and moved further down the street, behind the buildings on the east side for concealment. Taking up a new vantage point to the north of their target, Ethan studied ‘Bravo’ again and visually cleared the street, paying close attention to the south. Hand-signing their next position to Kelin, the latter nodded that he was ready. Ethan radioed the second check-point and they moved.

 

They crossed the street, one at a time, in fifteen seconds, taking cover at the edge of a building behind a waist-high hedge. A second look down the street for drones that weren’t pursuing, and they moved on to the rear of the building. Mirroring the west side of the street, a narrow span of grass covered the area between the rear of the buildings to the west and those that faced the next street to the east. Sticking to the rear of the buildings on the west and concealing their approach, they paused at the last building that stood between them and ‘Bravo’.

 

There were no windows on the rear or north side of ‘Bravo’. There were also no doors. They carefully circled to the south side and found another solid wall. The only entrance was in front, and the entire process of concealing their approach and scouting the rear of the building had used what lead they might have had on pursuing drones.

 

Leaning around the corner of an adjacent building, Ethan gazed south toward their insertion point and slowly scanned the west side of the street toward the north. The area was still empty of drones. That the regular drones might have ignored his transmissions wasn’t surprising. But had the modified drones also ignored it or were they keeping their distance?

 

There wasn’t time to speculate. He signaled his intentions to Kelin and they moved low across the front of the building, stacking on the door with their firearms at a low ready.

 

Getting a readied tap on his shoulder from Kelin, Ethan waved his hand across the control surface next to the door. He moved in rapidly, clearing the doorway and taking the path of least resistance to his left, opposite of the door’s pocket in the wall. Kelin went right. They followed the walls several feet inside, each sweeping their eyes over their half of the room with raised weapons.

 

The room was empty: no furniture, humanoids or, more importantly, drones. But Ethan didn’t yet close the door. From appearances, the building’s structure had been recently altered; walls had been knocked down, transforming the entire building into a single room. A staircase was at the rear that descended below ground level. A thick bundle of wires emerged from a corner of the frame in the floor, climbed toward and disappeared through the ceiling -- possible connections to a concealed radio antenna on the roof that controlled the modified drones.

 

Cautiously and with weapons still raised, they converged on the staircase from oblique angles that would put any unexpected target in a crossfire. Artificial lighting cast a blue-gray hint into the room below. Determining that no one was waiting below, Ethan lowered his rifle, returned to the door and closed it. After a few seconds of studying the symbols on the wall, he figured out the locking mechanism and secured the door. The more time that passed, the less likely it was that drones were pursuing them, but he wasn’t going to leave them a welcome mat.

 

He glanced at Kelin, who was keeping an eye on the staircase, and received a confused look in return. The younger man had expected resistance and Ethan read the same question he was feeling in Kelin’s face. Is this too easy?

 

They proceeded down the stairs, clearing them as quickly as possible and entering an open basement that was roughly the same size as the building above it. The basement was empty and they moved on to the next threat: a tunnel that had been roughly excavated and framed in the concrete-like wall to the west. The bundle of comm cabling extended into the tunnel’s depths and Ethan recognized the string of temporary lighting that hung next to it from the overhead. It was manufactured by the Federation. Given the model, it was indisputable proof that someone had been here less than ten years ago and long enough to establish a hidden bunker.

 

There was no ‘safe’ way to approach or travel a fatal funnel and the longer they were, the more dangerous traveling too quickly or slowly became. Smoothly they entered and moved down the narrow passageway. It extended north-west farther than they could see until it curved to the west, and they walked over two hundred meters before they came to the first junction on their right. Ethan’s watch read: 1635; they had an hour and ten minutes left to accomplish their mission and make the extraction point.

 

Ethan paused, checked the corner and then looked at the ceiling. The lights branched down both arteries, but the comm cabling only continued north-west down the main line. The tunnel to the right appeared to terminate at twenty meters and open into a dimly lit chamber.

 

Waiting the few seconds for Ethan to make a decision, a faint buzz darted past Kelin’s ear and he instinctively flinched, getting Ethan’s attention. Kelin shrugged. He hadn’t been informed or had the time to notice that the surface of Zoalus was devoid of animal or insect life, and figured the sound had just been a passing nuisance.

 

Ethan pointed down the tunnel to their right and Kelin nodded. He rounded the corner behind Ethan, absently swatting at his neck as the buzzing settled there and took a bite. Kelin carried on despite the pin-prick sting; but if Ethan had heard the buzzing or been stung, he either wasn’t reacting or didn’t realize it. They quickly reached the tunnel’s terminus, separating again to follow the walls.

 

Like before, no one, humanoid or drone, was waiting for them and they lowered their firearms. The chamber was a naturally formed limestone cave, stretching asymmetrically through the ground on a slight decline from the tunneled exit. The classic stalactites hung over stalagmites, though most had been cleared or broken by humanoid intrusion and some had been used to hang lights. In the center was a large pool and in the sloped ceiling directly above, a horizontal crevice that lead to the surface. Ethan signaled more directions to Kelin, and the latter took watch of the door while Ethan ventured further into the cave.

 

He could hear the sound of rapids as he neared the pool and studied the crevice overhead. They were near the river and, given the darkness pouring through the gap, the sun had set. It was only large enough to accommodate an adult; equipment to cut the tunnels had likely been brought through the building where they’d begun. All information that might prove useful, and he took the time to note a few places in which they could place explosives to effectively collapse the cavern on top of the pool, without compromising the nearby riverbank. That was when the time came.

 

But, right now, what Ethan had come for, his objective or ‘Mike’, was in the pool. Standing over it, he crouched at the edge and stared into the liquid. It either wasn’t water or not water alone. He couldn’t tell how deep it was. The surface was inky and a layer of blotchy rainbows floated on top. Motoroils. That must have been where they got their name, Ethan privately mused.

 

Unable to dissuade himself from taking his attention off the doorway, Kelin watched as Ethan, crouching at the pool, unslung his rifle and set it aside. Removing the ruck from his back and opening it, he pulled out a nitrile glove. Slipping the glove on his right hand, he reached into the ruck a second time and produced a set of four vials. Ethan would take samples for later analysis while Kelin stood guard, and then they would set demotions to destroy the cave before heading to their extraction point. Kelin was relieved that it would soon be over and maybe with time to spare.

 

Kelin tried not to shiver as he reassumed his AOR. It was true that he was Andorian, but after living the majority of his life in space, he’d grown accustomed to the balmy environment of ships. First the Capricorn while Grotte tried to suffocate them out; now here. It seemed the deeper they were, the colder it grew and he hadn’t worn clothing for inclement weather.

 

Stop it. No turning it. Need more.

 

Kelin blinked and shook his head. He listened for a moment, but didn’t hear it again. He should have mentioned it if he thought he'd heard something, but he decided it must have been his imagination instead.

 

The oil on the surface swirled around Ethan’s gloved hand as he lifted out a second vial, capped it and dropped it into a plastic bag with the first. Kelin shifted to get a better look from his post behind Ethan, boots scraping lightly on the ground. Grabbing the third vial, he unscrewed the cap and reached for the pool.

 

Instinctively, Ethan's hand clenched the vial as a burning sensation unexpectedly sliced through the meat exposed by his carrier on his shoulder blade and down his left side. In shock and only half-aware of what had happened, he acted on ingrained training, immediately reaching for his sidearm as he began to rise to his feet, turn and fall back. But there wasn’t enough time to face or gain distance from the threat before Kelin bodily tackled him at a full sprint and they plunged into the pool. The liquid mixture sloshed over its banks as they disappeared beneath, stretching the oily surface into prismatic ribbons.

Edited November 18, 2011 by Ethan Neufeld