Measure Twice
Posted on 20 May 2021 @ 6:40pm by Commander Calliope Zahn & Crewman Recruit Zuzal
Mission:
M2 - Sanctuary
Location: Marine Decks, Engineering Storage
Timeline: MD04 0830hrs
1256 words - 2.5 OF Standard Post Measure
The storage bay was still quiet and Calliope motored inside. She had decided on the hover chair this time, saving her walking cane for when she needed to let the medical personnel have the full impression of her improvement. She switched on the light and went straight towards Ogre.
Zuzal took in a sharp gasp at the sight of the terrible machine. It had a sinister form, with the bulky body like a hunched troll and having the sharp gaping forms of disarmed sockets. Its head looked to have been peeled, all of the cables forming analogies to sinews and the phaser-damaged open sensor unit appearing to be one blinded cyclops eye.
Calliope held back a laugh at the spooked reaction of her young attendant. “It won’t bite.” She lifted up a very thick cable dangling out of the disconnected spine to demonstrate. “The power’s been cut.”
The sudden visual of the severed robotic spine had the opposite effect, making the girl jump instead of soothing her own nerves. “What…” She recovered herself, a hand clutched instinctively over her racing heart. “What is it?”
“It’s a discontinued old Cardassian mining automaton.” Calliope saw Zuzal’s eyes fall to the cutting lasers set into the body. The original cutting lasers had been swapped with heavy phaser artillery. “It was weaponized.” Picking up a multitool, Calliope motioned for Zuzal to assist. “Bring me the scanner cart.”
“What are you doing with it?”
Calliope set the multi-tool to match the unusual Cardassian fastener in one of the side panels between the upper and lower arms on the bot’s right side and began working her way around the unreasonable number of inset screws. “Analysis.” Calliope held out a handful of fasteners and Zuzal instinctual responded by holding out her own hands to gather to catch them. Maybe she’d make a good assistant, after all. “Don’t lose those. Put them in one of those collection pails on the bench and mark it 'RT-gamma-14' for me.” Yanking the panel off, with a pop and a hiss of unbroken inner containment in the compartment, Calliope sampled the inner compartment air with a small pocket collector, tucked that away and then raised the scanning wand from the cart and took a model image of the interior.
“What are you looking for?”
“I’m not sure exactly,” Calliope admitted. “I’m waiting for a call back from a friend with experience with these bots, in their original manufactured forms. I’m betting he has some factory blueprints I can’t find on file anywhere else. If he hasn’t binned them from his files, maybe I can run a comparison, see which of these parts were amended to the original.”
“Why?”
“Great question. Never stop asking questions.” Calliope let the quiet hang while she focused on highlighting different likely functions of the control box throughout the resizable complex interactive holographic display, her practical technical skills coming back like riding a bike. She wasn’t a theorist like Quinn, but she knew wiring.
Zuzal wasn’t sure what she was watching. It felt like some kind of technical wizardry as the ghostly representation of the machine’s innards were navigated between the commander’s open palms. She zoomed in, more and more until she had to have been at a microscopic level looking at some kind of three dimentional circuitry, which Zuzal could only describe as a head spinning maze. But there had to be a method to the madness. At least the Commander made it appear as if there were. She looked down at the fasteners still in her hands and remembered she was meant to put them in the collection cup and mark them.
“Why?” she said again, as she went to the work bench.
“Why what?” Calliope was engrossed in what she was doing, not looking away from the analysis she added gently. “It’s good to ask questions, but it’s better to ask good questions.”
“Why are you finding the changed parts of it?”
“Custom work is like… like graffiti. People sign their work. Even if they’re not aware of it. I’m looking for the tags.”
With careful lettering, Zuzal inscribed a label for the fasteners and set them back down, evaluating her writing and wondering if she was slipping since her calligraphy lessons back on her homeworld. She took so many notes every day for her lessons now that she had foregone the exacting perfection of the craft. She rather liked the energy in the tail of her lines now, though. “Like handwriting.” She said.
“Yes, handwriting. Only instead of how far it leans and if it’s round or pointy, I’m looking for material analysis, certain signs of replication or casting or specialized repurposed parts. There’s a chance some very specialized parts can be source traced and cross compared with buyer lists.”
“That sounds very time consuming.”
“I'm pretty much made of time right now.”
“What if it turns up nothing much? What will you do next?”
“Oh I’ll find plenty of clues to trace. The people that built this? They think they’re untouchable just because they hide behind a front or conceal themselves under layers of shadow organizations. But that arrogance means they make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. They gave themselves away a long time ago. I’m just going to read their own map back to them. Hand me the micro drill kit. With the extension arm.” When Zuzal looked overwhelmed at the options on the tool wall, Calliope amended. “It has a red cap and a hexagonal grip. No, the next one. Yes, that’s it.” As she uncapped it and put the settings to the correct depth, Calliope paused staring at the slight wavering in her hands. There was no way she could micro drill this herself. “Miss Zuzal, could you—“
Zuzal came over and as she'd been the entire day, was ready to assist. “Yes?”
But Calliope had to admit that Zuzal didn't have enough experience to handle the fine, particular work either and there was no way of truly knowing what was on the other side of the durranium alloy she wanted to cut into. They might trigger something regretful. The work shouldn't be rushed just because she felt there were answers embedded. she needed more accurate measurements.
“Put this back for now. I'm actually not quite ready for it today.” Calliope ran a hand over her head, the feeling of directly touching her own scalp still odd and almost shocking to her. “I think that's as much as I can do until I have the prints.”
“Alright.” Zuzal was relieved as she returned the drill. She couldn't reach up high enough to replace the cover that had been on the floor, but did use it to hide the viscous clawed arms on the disassembly table. She didn't much care to be in the same room as the robot and covering them somehow had the same psychological effect as hiding your face under the covers. If you couldn't see them, you could try to deny they were there. “Do you want to go back to the ward?”
“Not especially...” Calliope was at the door and shut off the lights as she waited in the frame. Zuzal caught up, racing along the beam of light falling into the storage bay from the corridor. She hazarded one last look over her shoulder spying a nightmare outline of the broken hulk. Zuzal shuddered.