Gadgets and Gizmos Aplenty

Posted on Thu Jun 1st, 2023 @ 6:30pm by Petty Officer, 3rd Class Kiyara de Vos & Ensign Madelyn 'Madi' Moore

Mission: Sojurn
Location: USS Atlantis
2102 words - 4.2 OF Standard Post Measure

"There you are."

It had been no surprise to Madelyn, though she had still checked the habitat ring where the crew had been assigned planetside quarters first, that the engineer she sought was not, in fact, enjoying the thrills and spills of Realian culture but had opted instead to bury themselves in the work required to make the ship flight-worthy again. She couldn't fault the necessity but worried still that her friend wasn't taking the rare opportunity to enjoy wide open spaces and a menu that actually counted a diverse. As she ducked low to squeeze herself into the space behind the kitchen's vast refrigeration unit where Kiyara was tucked away out of mischief, Madi found it at least ironic that the petty officer had still found somewhere absolutely freezing to hide. She sat, with an awkward twist that nearly trapped her leg, and then tried to shuffle her way deeper into the confined gap.

"You know I'd never want to play Hide and Seek with you," she declared cheerfully, leaning over to peer at what Kiyara was doing. "Even the computer was having a hard time figuring out where you were." That could have been, Madi conceded, because of the sheer amount of repairs still outstanding but she didn't mention it. Kiyara hardly needed more support in squandering mental health time on work.

"There's way better hiding places than the fridge." A hand reached out from the small hidey hole that the damage control specialist was tucked into, "hyperspanner?" They were close to fixing yet another blown fuse, the catastrophic collapse of the warp bubble had really done a number on the internal circuitry and even with the help of the Raelians the Atlantis' engineering team were the primary people responsible for fixing most of it.

Taken aback, Madi searched either side of her before coming to the conclusion that she'd sat on half of her friend's equipment. Reaching beneath herself, she swept out several tools and eventually located, through process of elimination, the one in question. She held it out without a word about how close to squashing it she'd come. "Which just proves my point, you're too good at this." Leaning to the side, the scientist watched what the engineer was doing for a moment and pointed out, "You do realise there's an entire planet of ice out there, right? Is refrigeration really a current priority?"

For a moment Kiyara didn't react to the query as they applied the spanner to the necessary bolt, once satisfied with the work they'd done they pulled themself from the maintenance panel and released their hair from the tight bun meant to keep it out of the way. It had been slightly too tight on their head and it was the first priority when emerging from the cramped workspace. "I'm from Africa. Ice planets are not my jam. Besides. We're working to get away from here, so we'll need refrigeration again before long."

There was a moment where Madelyn stared a little too long, and the fact that it coincided with Kiya's decision to literally let their hair down created a compounding coincidence that the scientist didn't pick up on until she followed her train of thought all the way to its end and realised just exactly what her eyes were doing. A furtive flutter brought her back and she opened her mouth, only to close it again to fashion a thought-out response before trying again.

"It's still a planet, with open spaces and an abundance of new experiences. You can bundle yourself up in layers and avoid the snow for the most part, but you should at least spend some time down there," she lamented. "Who knows when we'll have a chance to do this again."

There was a bit of a shrug from the damage control specialist, "There's still quite a lot of work to do. The list is long and we don't have a limitless supply of engineering hands to tick them off." Kiyara had been working with their team and the rest of the Engineering team to work out the damages and seeing if there was a possibility for them to get some much needed upgrades in now that the vessel was basically back in dry-dock. "I can live vicariously through you. Tell me about all the things you've seen."

"Oh, I can do you one better than that." With a great flourish, and a good deal of self-congratulatory pride in finding the perfect segue into what she'd anticipated to be a rather awkward exchange, Madelyn deposited a sleek box into her friend's lap. "And if this doesn't convince you to come down and actually check out what this place has going on, I don't know what will." She tapped the box with a fingernail. "Open it." Impatience became a patter of fingernails. "I got it for you. It's nerdy tech stuff, so you're not allowed to not like it."

Kiyara looked at the sleek box in her lap and her attention was drawn onto the tapping of fingernails. "Alright." With the box in lap they tried to figure out what it could be that Madi had gotten her. "Is it a treadmill?" They joked before starting to undo the bow and slipping out the internal package from it, which snugly held a black device with gold trimmings and what appeared to be some kind of pen. "Oh, is this a notepad of sorts?" They plucked the pen from its soft bed inside the box and looked at it more closely. It had three buttons on it, which for a pen was weird. The symbols were foreign to them but that shouldn't be a surprise knowing where it came from. Clicking the topmost button the tip of the pen started to glow slightly.

With the glowing tip Kiyara traced a line over the surface of the inactive tablet that had come with it. It immediately seemed to capture their movements with the pen. Writing their name and then that of Madelyn before looking up towards her friend and giving a smile. "That's awesome, thank you."

An impatient tutting saw the scientist reach across and pluck the device from Kiyara's hand. "Oh, that's only the tip of the iceberg. First of all, look." Scooting to the side a little, she used the pen to scrawl a reciprocated version of her friend's name, in impressively neat cursive; all over the floor decking. Turning her hand, Madi rubbed the side of her fist against it to prove it wouldn't smudge. "And now," she clicked another button and scribbled back over the lettering to remove it. "I have no idea how many surfaces it works on but I'm guessing a lot." It was a very scientific deduction.

"What the..?" Kiya traced their hand over the spot where their name had just been moments ago. "How does that..?" They took the pen back and tried it on their uniform pants leg, sprawling 'property of Kiyara' across her thigh. Different surface, same result. With a flick of the switch they erased it with ease. "This is insane."

Madelyn beamed, flushing just the right shade of pink to convey pleasure rather than outright embarrassment, though she had to admit to a certain amount of relief. Kiyara had far more idea about this kind of thing and Madi had been partially worried that she was goggle-eyed over something that had a very basic principle. There was also the matter of buying a gift in the first place but a lot about Smith's reign of deception had lent itself towards introspection and Madi had come to realise she was in danger of taking people for granted. At the very least, she had coasted along not making a great deal of effort. This, she hoped, somewhat made up for that.

"When you turn the notebook on, you can save whatever you write on it," she pointed out, understanding that it was somewhat considerably less impressive but, under the circumstances, equally as useful. The scientist hunched her shoulders, coy for a moment with happiness that she'd judged something right for once. "I thought it would be useful, for work and stuff."

Kiyara nodded profusely, they were never one to wear their emotions on their sleeve but the fact that Madelyn was thinking of them and using the scarce credits they had gotten to gift them something was filling them with a happiness that was difficult to suppress under a professional veneer. "It's super useful, I can't even begin to thank you for this. Actually, It's too much." with that the damage control specialist pushed the notepad and the pen back over towards the Ensign across from her.

Madi's heart sank and she frowned, hesitating for a moment before boldness attempted some semblance of assertiveness. "It's really not," she picked up the bundle and placed it firmly back in the engineer's lap. "That's the thing, I thought these would be ridiculously over-priced but they're not. These are such a standard thing here that they're no different, comparitively, to the price of a really nice ordinary pen back home, it's insane. I got you this one," she continued in a rush, "because I wanted to make sure I was right about how useful they'd be." And because I wanted to see you smile for once. "I think they could be something the crew could really use."

"It's amazing. I'm sure the crew would really appreciate these. Especially Damage Control. Just write down what's wrong with a piece of equipment with a non-corrosive, non-invasive magical ink?" The damage control specialist beamed thinking of all the potential uses of the thing. "I'll get you something when I go to the surface." They insisted.

A slow grin spread across Madelyn's face, chasing away the last of her hesitation in wondering whether she'd made a bad choice. "You don't have to get me anything, just getting you down there will be enough. I could come with you if you like," she added with uncommon boldness and then squirmed a little at the realisation of her presumption. "If you want, that is."

Kiyara slowly nodded at that, "I'd like that." It forced another smile from them. "I'll finish up my workday and after that I can probably join you on a short trip to the planet below." they looked over at the PADD on the floor next to them and with the refrigeration unit crossed off it they were almost done anyway. Just a short stop at the medical bay for a particularly persistent drip from a faucet.

True to her word, Madi looked as if she'd achieved a personal goal, which just went to show how easily she wore her emotions on her sleeve because that was exactly what had happened. Trying to peel Kiyara away from their work for anything other than board games was decidedly impossible and Madelyn was glad that her hunch about the unexpected level of technological advancement being flung into everyday life on Realia had proven correct. "Just buzz me when you're done," she agreed, before turning to look at the narrow gap she needed to navigate to get back out again. "I'll leave you to it." A rather ungraceful attempt to rise far enough to shimmy her way sideways was met with a grunt and the resounding twang of a head hitting metal piping. "At least, I think I will. Ow."

"Are you ok?" Kiyara slid away from the confined space and looked over at Madi. They grabbed the first aid pack that was standard issue with Damage Control kits and sidled closer to her friend. "Are you bleeding? I have to tell you, I can't really handle blood." They immediately confided.

More embarrassed than hurt, Madi kept her hand where it was and shook her head as if to prove a point. "I think it's fine, I'm just a klutz." Her tone was slightly woebegone, as if to lament an ailment that often plagued her but for which she had no viable solution.

"Keeps me in a job, I suppose." Kiyara smirked and started packing up their engineering kit so they could return it to Engineering and sign out. "Meet you in the shuttlebay in twenty?" They then looked down at their overalls and the general state of their hygiene, "Make it thirty." A sheepish smile accompanied that.

Still rubbing her head, determined to mask any requirement for first aid until she had a moment to examine the damage herself, Madelyn grinned and nodded, albeit a little gingerly. "Done."

 

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