Domination

        Taylor awoke with the worst headache he had ever had, even
worse than when he had drunk himself to unconciousness, and had needed
2 weeks to recover. He tried to sit up, but found that he was
restrained. A medical droid came over to him, and asked him, 'Wow moo
do beel?.' Taylor was puzzled at that, and aked the droid what it
meant.
        'How do you feel?' the droid repeated, but again the only
response it got was an unintelligible string of words. Obviously the
surgery had not gone perfectly, and he sedated the patient again.
        Taylor again woke, but this time without the headache. Again
the droid came up to him, and spoke, but this time he had no trouble
understanding it.
        'I feel fine.' He replied, 'Would you mind telling me what's
going on?'
        'You were involved in an accident. Your fighter was destroyed,
and you just barely managed to eject in time. You were picked up, and
immediately placed in a bacta tank. Unfortunately, you were allergic
to the bacta, and the resulting reaction blew up the tank, and you
were seriously injured. You have been fitted with a prosthetic left
arm, and your left eye and tongue are mechanical now. This will come
as a shock to you, and you are not expected to fully appreciate what
has happened to you yet, so I suggest you get some rest, and we can
talk agan when your head is clear.'
Taylor jumped out of bed yelling, 'My head is clear! What are you
saying, will I be able to fly again?' as he said this, he was concious
of the fact that his tongue was not his own, and his left arm wouldn't
move. 'Why isn't my arm working? Did you mess that up? Am I one handed
now?' he collapsed on the bed, sobbing, and he realised that only one
eye was crying, which only made him more furious. He launched himself
at the droid, but fell to the ground before he reached it. He had been
tied the the bed, and there was no way for him to get away from it. He
screamed, and hit his fist off the floor. He lay there for several
hours, sobbing until he could sob no more.

        Newly promoted Ensign Jones was acutely aware that he still
had a mission to carry out. He had been ordered to destroy the fleet,
and he was determined to see it through. He had come up with what he
thought was the best plan ever. As the ships had their combat shields
down, they were unprotected from phasers and torpedoes, so he had
formulated a plan to destroy them using the Scotsman herself. If he
ajusted the infux manifold of the seconary intake valve in the
amplitude flux stabiliser so that the neutrino emmisions trajectory
altered by 0.094 degrees, then it would set off a chain reaction that
would cause all of the Scotsmans weapons to fire at all nearby
targets, in this case, the Federation fleet, with any luck, destroying
them all before they could respond. He exited his quarters, and made
his way to Jefferies tube 17, subjunction 3 with an engineering kit.
He opened an access panel and began to make the adjustments. Soon he
would have destroyed all of the ships, and the Empire could expand
unhindered by the Federation. Within a few minutes he had done the
deed. Now all that was left to do was wait for the neutrino
concentration to reach critical levels, and he was patiently doing
just that, when his comm badge chirped.
        'Lowe to Jones, what are you doing ensign?' said the voice of
the chief engineer. He sighed, and then hit his badge to reply.
        'I was just.....um.....trying to fix a problem I noticed sir.'
He said in what he hoped was a convincing voice.
        'Well it seems that you've done a hell of a job there!' said
Lowe, 'Our phaser power has increased by 34% as has the rate of fire
of out torpedoes! Congratulations ensign, you've done it again. Are
you looking for another promotion? Because you've got one! Jones, I'm
putting in a request to have you transferred to engineering. You seem
to have some real talent!' The only response Jones gave was to hit his
head against a wall, over and over and over again until he felt a
trickle of blood running down his face. He stopped, and returned to
his quarters. It seemed he would have to settle for the destruction of
the Scotsman. A warp core explosion at this close range woudl probably
cause serious damage to the rest of the fleet as well, and that was
probably the best he could hope for.

        Taylor awoke 2 days after first finding out he was no longer
entirely human, and for the first time, felt vaguely at ease. He
called the medical droid over, and told it he was ready to talk.
        'Excellent,' said the droid, 'Now tell me, what are your
initial feelings towards your implants?'
        'Well, at first I felt revulsion, but after a while, I came to
appreciate them. I realised that I had been given my life back by
technology, and I should be grateful. In fact my sight is better than
ever before, although my prosthetic doesn't feel very strong.'
        The droid seemed delighted by this. 'You are making remarkable
progress.' It commented, 'I belive that you are ready to be released
to your quarters, unless you have any more questions?'
        'Just one.' Said Taylor with an evil gleam in his human eye.
'I want you to make my new hand stronger. Strong enough to bend
plasteel bars.'
        'Well, I don't know about that....' said the droid, 'But I'll
see what I can do.'
        Taylor was released 3 hours later several hundred times
stronger than when he had gone in, and with a huge smile on his face.

        There was no time for subterfuge, he had to act quickly. Jones
strode into engineering with a phaser in his hand, and didn't stop
even as Lowe approached him.
        'What are you doing Lieutenant?' he asked politely.
        'Just an experiment.' Replied Jones, and he fired the phaser
at the warp core. Lowe yelled in terror as the readings from the warp
core went off the scale, but there seemed to be no cause for alarm, as
the readings steadied out, but much higher than they had been
previously. The Scotsmans top speed had increased by another 0.06 or a
warp factor. Lowe could scarecly believe his eyes. Neither could Jones
for that matter, he looked at the phaser, and saw that it was set to
stun. He had forgotten that the ship would automatically reduce the
setting to stun while it was onboard. He dropped the phaser and ran at
the warp core, leaping at it as fast as he could. He bounced off it
without doing any damage, and, incredibly, the Scotsmans top speed
increased yet again, this time by 0.01 of a warp factor. By this time
Lowe was feeling a bit faint. Jones had accomplished the impossible,
the Scotsman was now the fastest ship in the fleet, and Lowe had no
idea why. He turned to face Jones, only to find him hammering away at
the warp core with an anti grav pad. Incredibly this seemed to be
increasing their top speed again, the anti grav field had altered the
collision paths of the M/AM, and had imcreased the collision rate by
12.3%. Lowe was shocked beyond belief. Jones was accomplishing in
minutes, what Starfleet engineers too entire careers to do. There was
no doubt in his mind at all, the Scotsman should have the best Chief
Engineer available, and Jones was the man for the job. He would stand
down immediately, and persuade Boyd to give Jones the post. That would
also mean another promotion, most likely to Commander. Lowe could
scarcely believe what he was thinking. Jones may have once been an
incompetant fool, but that spell with the Imperials seemed to have
done him a world of good, and he was now, there was no other word for
it, a genius.

(TO BE CONTINUED)