"What happened?" Captain Jacks demanded as they dragged the unconscious man in.
"Electrocuted I think," Indira told him, struggling with the suited body.
"You think?" the captain sounded like the doctor now.
The doctor said, "Possible electrocution. Whatever the cause, his hands are badly burned and he hasn't regained consciousness."
Jacks helped them get his to the medical bay and onto the exam table before saying, "you've broken containment protocols."
"We didn't have a choice," the biologist said, "he was injured, and I had to at least see if he was alive. His suit was already compromised when his gloves melted."
"Tell me exactly what happened," he demanded.
"We had an access panel open on the workstation. He had a multimeter, and put the leads in to check voltage. Next thing I saw was him flying backwards."
"He'll live," Simental said, stripping the suit off of him, "but he won't be able to use his hands for awhile."
"Great. Now he has an excuse to order the interns around to do his work for him."
"That's enough, Indira. I think he's been through enough today without your rough tongue."
"Yes sir."
"Doctor, why don't we go take a look at that circuitry that did this, eh?"
"Yes, Captain, but hopefully more carefully."
"Amen to that, Doctor. Let's go."
Considering recent events, the captain decided to suspend the quarantine, and thus the need for environment suits. He dug out a few more instruments to take with them as Indira got out of her suit. Finally they were ready to go.
It was a relatively short walk to the structure considering they had set the camp up with that in mind. As usual, the vents blew over them as they entered the huge doorway. The station they had been analyzing was just inside, again making it easy to get to. Max's melted multimeter was still sitting exactly where he had left it, and the smell of ozone and chlorine was in the air.
"Smell that?" the captain said, "we'd better use masks."
"Definitely," she agreed, pulling the respirator out of her belt pouch and positioning it properly over her mouth, nose, and eyes.
There was a light smoke or steam wafting out of the open panel that they had been working with. Peering inside they saw that one of the conduits had been ruptured, and a viscous red-orange liquid had escaped, partially melting some of the wires and circuitry inside.
"Oops," Indira said.
"Yeah, oops. That was careless of him."
"Possibly. But he didn't do anything that I saw that would explain how that tube ruptured. He was only using the multimeter. It must have been a secondary effect of whatever he did."
"Perhaps," the captain allowed, "whatever the reason, I'd say this terminal is ruined. Make a note about the conduits with the red liquid. Stay away from them at all costs."
"Yes sir."
"Do you think it's possible to disassemble one of these stations and take it back up to the ship?"
"I don't see why not, as long as we're careful."
"Then let's get to it. We'll take that one," he indicated the terminal next to the one they were at.
The problem they encountered was figuring out how the connectors and attachments worked. They weren't simple plugs or Earth standard bolts. These were alien technologies that could be as difficult to figure out as the computer systems themselves.
It took two days to puzzle out the connectors, and they had to bring down Hermann Schmitt, the Chief Engineer, to help. They documented everything meticulously. If they ever came across these technologies again in the future, it would be good to know how they worked. Documentation was also a key component in reverse-engineering any useful technologies. As ordered, they left the red-orange conduit alone and made no effort to unhook or move it.
Once the connections were figured out, it was just a matter of physical disassembly. That took only a day, though they ended up with a huge machine that would be extremely difficult to move. They called down a cargo shuttle with a forklift and flatbed truck to get it loaded and back to the ship.
"Whew! That was a hell of a job," Marcus sighed, straightening his security uniform.
"I think it will be well worth the effort," Indira said confidently, "just imagine what we can learn from just that one piece of technology."
"Next time," Andy gasped, "let's let the cargo team do all of the heavy lifting."
Back on the ship, it was even more difficult to get the device from the shuttle into a sealed research chamber. But once it was there, everyone let out a collective sigh of relief and a feeling of excitement to see what they could learn from it.
"Do you think it uses electricity?" Indira asked nobody in particular.
"I wouldn't think so," Max said airily, "there's no reason to think that their technology developed parallel to our own."
"There's no reason to think that it wouldn't, either," Slivinski countered.
"What else could it be then?" Leon asked, "theoretically speaking."
"Light maybe," Ted offered, "plasma? Something we've never encountered before? Who knows what it could be?"
"Physiologically speaking," Indira said, "we use electricity because it occurs naturally in nature. Our own bodies use electrical impulses to communicate with our brains."
"And how do you know that their bodies use electrical impulses," Max may have lost the use of his hands temporarily, but everyone wished that it had been his tongue.
"Because I read the report," she threw back at him, "something that you obviously have not bothered to do."
"Fine," he fumed, "you go get yourself electrocuted like me." And with that he turned and stormed out of the bay, making as much fuss as he could.
"Drama queen," She shot at his retreating back.
"Uh, Indira? I don't remember there being anything in the report about them having an electro-neural system."
"There wasn't. I just wanted to knock him down a peg."
