Fun with phasers

Posted on Tue Sep 22nd, 2026 @ 8:35am by Lieutenant Commander Daniel Masters & Lieutenant Zoren Valyus

2,436 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Prologue: To Boldly Go
Location: Phaser Range
Timeline: En Route

ON: [Phaser Range]


If someone could find Daniel anywhere the chances were if he wasn't in his quarters or his seat on the bridge it was the Valhalla lounge or the phaser range built into the armoury. today it was the phaser range. The holodeck had its advantages over the phaser range, more in depth tactical scenario's could be done, weapons from all across the galaxy could be created by the holo-system rather than needing to actually own one and the targets could be anything the system could create. The main disadvantage being having to compete with 169 other crew for time on the Fenrir's three relatively small holodecks which even as a senior officer Daniel couldn't get priority on, so blasting away simple targets on the range was the order of the day.

The Type II phaser in his hand flashed several times, short beams striking target after target with just enough energy expended to register as a kill shot, his movements methodical, the experience of nearly two decades worth of fighting anything and everything that threatened him, his friends or his ship.

Zoren entered the range.

In a perfect world, Doctors would not need to know how to operate weapons systems. But perfect worlds were for utopian dreamers, not people actually exploring the unknown or policing the boundaries of civilization. Starfleet was regularly adamant about not being a military, but Zoren believed this was mostly an aspirational public relations statement than a reality. When war happened, it was Starfleet who stood between Federation citizens and harm. When an enemy was invaded, it was Starfleet personnel who fought enemy soldiers and occupied ground.

Starfleet did not make a habit of invading anyone, of course, but on those occasions when war surfaced, it was not always possible to sit passively within one's own territory. So, Starfleet was a military, whether it wanted to be one or not. That was fine. Zoren considered it good that the organization disliked the role so much that they denied it. It was what kept them from being a force of oppression.

It was one of the reasons he'd chosen to serve.

But... whether openly admitted or not, Zoren was an officer in a military organization. And he needed to train with weapons. It was regulation: He had to qualify with a Type I, Type II, and Type III phaser yearly. It was a low bar, just enough to prove basic competence.

That was fortunate, because Zoren wasn't at all good with a weapon.

He took the training phaser from the Armory officer: A real phaser that was electronically limited within the bounds of the firing range. It couldn't even stun someone, although the range computer would recognize when different settings were used against different targets. One of the drills involved changing settings as needed to take out a target when the first setting didn't work.

Passing the safety line, Zoren took a position close by to another shooter. He nodded to Daniel.

"Lieutenant Commander," he said, "I'm Zoren Valyus, recently assigned to the ship as Assistant Chief Medical Officer. Fortuitous to have you in the range. Please feel free to offer any corrections to my technique."

Not expecting anyone to be joining him on the phaser range Daniel looked up as he was addressed by another human.... no not quite.. the mans lack of hair was too fine, no razor had touched that smooth head, it was natural. A Deltan. "Good day Lieutenant." He replied before turning back to his targets.

The Deltan examined his weapon and then studied the silhouette which the range was projecting for him. These were not complex tactile holograms like those found on the holodeck. Merely projected targets. The range was not as deep as it appeared to be. Optical illusions created the impression of depth without actually using up a lot of the ship's internal volume. The range looked like it was 100 meters deep, but the actual number was far smaller.

He touched the target controls on his lane, moving the silhouette to 'qualification' distance. Just twenty meters.

Then he took aim, hoping to get the required score on his first try.

Six short bursts later, it was clear that was not going to happen...

His once perfect concentration broken by the new Lieutenant only a few bays down from him Daniel slowed his own rate of fire and started to watch his shooting, it definitely needed improvement, eventually he stopped and holstered his phaser. "You're tensing up too much." He remarked as he walked closer to Zoren's bay.

Zoren looked back over to the ship's fourth-most senior officer. He nodded, "It's a strange thing," he admitted, "a laser scalpel never bothered me. Severing a nerve cluster? Steady as a rock. But a rapid-nadion emitter?"

His forehead creased as he considered it. What was it that made him treat hand-phasers as though they were high-explosives?

He supposed he'd probably seen too much evidence of what these weapons could do to a Deltanoid body. On the right setting, victims looked like they'd been scorched in a plasma fire...

A memory flashed briefly in his mind's eye.

He took a deep breath. Steadied himself. Then tried again.

The beam shot over the target silhouette's left shoulder, missing the target entirely.

Zoren frowned. Was this something else he'd have to discuss with the Counselor?

"Is there a trick you use to prevent an anticipatory muscle contraction, Sir?" Zoren looked back over at the Lieutenant Commander. Handsome man. This ship was rife with aesthetically-pleasing examples of every species.

"A laser scalpel is a tool you use regularly." Daniel replied. "A phaser not so much, you know what every small movement of the scalpel will result in, what range of motion holding the laser scalpel in a slightly different grip will give you. Put a laser scalpel in my hand and I'd probably kill the patient within a minute, put a phaser rifle in my hand and I'll shoot the ears of a Ferengi at over a thousand meters." He covered the last few steps to where Zoren stood. "Take a deep breath, drop your shoulders a little more, with no real sights on a type II you need to feel the shot, aim where instinct tells you to aim."

Zoren listened to the senior officer. He was kind enough to allow that the Deltan wasn't incompetent, merely highly trained in a different tool.

At the comment about Ferengi ears, the Deltan allowed himself the slightest of smirks. "Well, to be fair, that would be a very large target."

He regretted it almost as soon as he'd said it. Ferengi ears were huge. Even Tiburonians couldn't compete. But... it might be impolitic to say so. Then again, the Ferengi themselves took great pride in the size of their lobes... so maybe they'd be flattered.

As the Lieutenant Commander came very near, Zoren felt himself tensing up to a greater degree. He took a deep breath as instructed, tried to force his shoulders down, and-

Apparently, his instincts told him not to aim at the target. Admittedly, he missed by a smaller margin. A mere centimeter from the edge of the silhouette.

Zoren swallowed. "I suppose if I repeat this enough, it will begin to seem so pedestrian that there'll be no anxiety in it..." It sounded logical, though he wasn't sure he believed it.

"It's just like any task, practice it often enough and it will become second nature, shooting someone for real however is completely different to shooting at a target, but if your mind is thinking that person is just a target it's a lot easier. You doctors have an oath that says to do no harm but the person on the other side of your phaser might not have the same ideology, they'll kill you just as easily as they would anyone else." Daniel told him, memories of seeing Jem'Hadar soldiers rampaging through the field hospital he lay in came to the forefront of his mind.

The man's words resonated in Zoren's mind: 'if your mind is thinking that person is just a target it's a lot easier.'

He suspected the problem might be the reverse of that: His mind was thinking the target was a person. But he wasn't about to admit any psychological frailty to a senior officer, even if he wasn't in Zoren's direct chain of command.

The last thing he needed was gossip about the new Medical Officer being soft.

"Segregating the need to do no harm from the need to protect onseself and one's patients is a conundrum that has probably plagued physicians for the entirety of history," he admitted aloud. "But I've seen soldiers apply expert field medicine. I'll learn to be a soldier when need be."

He paused, adding, "I just hope it won't need to be very often."

Nodding to the Lieutenant Commander, he said, "Do you mind if I observe your technique? Perhaps I'll absorb something through osmosis."

"Sure." Daniel programmed the bay adjacent to Zoren to fifty meters and stood in a firing position. "Keep relaxed and loose, don't over think the shot." His firing arm bent slightly and his grip on the phaser loose. He fired at the target striking it dead center. "It's completely different when the enemy is shooting back at you though, all thought of aiming straight and true can go straight out the window but you have to push past all that and focus."

Zoren's eyes went wide. It was something of a treat seeing someone who excelled at their craft demonstrate what they were capable of. Fifty meters, and dead center. With keen eyes and steady hands like that, the Lieutenant Commander could have been a surgeon in another life. Or perhaps a fighter-pilot.

Interesting what sorts of opposite roles required the same skillset.

Of course, one might presume that Zoren should therefore be able to become a skilled marksman... but that was not in evidence.

"I notice you don't lock your elbows," Zoren remarked, "I think I might have been, without thinking about it." Subconsciously, it felt as though locking limbs should result in a steadier beam trajectory... but maybe that was a false impression.

Zoren took aim at his much nearer target, kept his elbows bent. Shoulders down. Deep breath. Let it out...

The orange-red beam of the phaser lanced the silhouette's shoulder. Not a scoring hit. But a hit of any kind was an improvement on what had come before.

"Aha! Centimetering towards success." Zoren allowed himself a smile. "There are very few Lieutenant Commanders on this ship," he said as he lined up another shot, doing his best to 'feel' the aim down the curved housing of the Type II hand phaser. "But I think they're both liable to be wearing yellow."

He fired again, and this time he got close enough to center mass to earn himself some points. Finally.

"That's better, but you definitely need some more practise." Daniel remarked, smiling at how just a little bit of basic instruction had the Deltan going from missing wildly to scoring a centre mass hit. "I'd schedule some more time here, ask any of the security team and they can give you some more instruction."

Zoren noticed the man hadn't identified himself, even with a gentle prompting. Well... some people were uncomfortable around Doctors. Sooner or later, a regular medical checkup would bring them together again.

"I will certainly keep at it," he said, "and I must say, your instruction is much preferable to that of my instructors at the Academy. Less shouting, for one."

Zoren had graduated the basic weapons training only by the skin of his teeth.

He smiled at the senior officer, "But while I have greatly appreciated your time, please don't let me distract further from your own range time. I know that for devotees of the martial arts, practicing can be akin to meditation."

Attuning to nature. Attuning to your body. Attuning to a weapon. Attuning to your inner mental state? It was all attuning, and Zoren had decided that the act of attunement was at the heart of any meditative practice.

Daniel chuckled, he'd done his fair share of shouting in training sessions. "Shouting is for group sessions and only when really necessary, some need more subtle instructing. As for my time, I'm mostly killing time here anyway, have a meeting with one of the engineers in about 15 minute."

Zoren considered Daniel for a moment. "Is that your department, then? I'd have stitched your button onto Security, given your ease with phasers."

He shrugged, "Though perhaps I shouldn't assume everyone else is as awkward with a nadion beam as I am."

"Nah, I'm security." Daniel clarified. "One of our engineers is an exchange officer, she has some sort of weapon built into her hand, quite interesting according to one of the other security officers."

Zoren's eyes widened. Not at the revelation of the man being in Security. No, at the revelation of an engineer having a weapon built into some kind of prosthetic hand. He'd have to look that one up. It sounded remarkable.

"Well. I suppose she's probably a better shot even than you," Zoren said, a hint of a smile curling the corners of his mouth.

"She probably knows her weapon... like the back of her hand."

If his erstwhile instructor had turned to fire a shot in Zoren's direction at that moment... well, it wouldn't be entirely undeserved.

An almost imperceptible shake of his head was Daniel's reaction to the Deltans attempt at humour. "I'd best go meet her, be sure to schedule yourself some more time down here."

The Deltan's hesitant smile dissolved, and he nodded, taking on a more serious aspect. "Yes. Thank you, Sir. I do appreciate your time."

Well. Not the best first impression to a senior officer. But at least he hadn't been shot.

Small victories.

When the other man departed, Zoren went to turn in his equipment back to the armory pass-through. The officer there smiled as she took them back and logged their return.

"So," Zoren said, "I never got that man's name."

"Lieutenant Commander Masters," she said, "fourth-highest ranking officer aboard. Chief of Security, Chief Tactical Officer."

Zoren nodded, confirming that he'd embarrassed himself in front of a major department head.

Perhaps getting shot would have been a mercy, after all.

OFF:

Lieutenant Zoren Valyus
Asst Chief Medical Officer
USS Fenrir

&

Lieutenant Commander Daniel Masters
Chief Sec/Tac Officer
USS Fenrir

 

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