Broken

Posted on Thu 24th Dec, 2020 @ 8:00pm by Yuliette Marayan Dr. & Radak

1,393 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Denouement
Location: Brown Sector Deck 2245
Timeline: MD 0

"Deputy Radak, here. Is home."

"Thank you, Ryvan."

The flaxian kid extended his open hand. "Oh, ah. Right." She rifled through the bottom of her bag and came up with three claws from the little things that the Rho Sara Natives had traded to her. She must have picked the right things to give, because Ryvan said something in Flaxian that had to have been "so cool!" He held them each between his knuckles and and ran off roaring like an animal.

Radak’s living quarters was a small room and workshop tucked away in a converted storage space. There were other people living in the narrow passageways. His room was at the end of the corridor, further away from the other domiciles. He’d always preferred things to be a little quieter. After Yuliette knocked at the door, there was a pause and he opened it. His face was marked with a few greenish bruises, and as he recognized her silhouette, he hesitated. “Neone. Hello. I wasn’t expecting you.”

Yuliette's look became concerned at the contusions and swelling. She had to resist blurting out a question, and instead stuttered back to the matter of her being there. "Oh, yes, I uh, don't have a comm. I would have called ahead. Is this a bad time? Are you... Are you okay?"

“I’m all right,” he said, sheepishly touching a bruise along his jawline. “Occupational hazard. You know. What brings you here? Do you need something?”

Occupational hazard. Of course. It didn't make her any less sympathetic to have an explanation though. "Yes, I need to have something fixed, if you could. I don't know if you can." She produced a older model of a medical tricorder from her bag."Do you repair electronics? If not, I can just take it down to Findleys."

“I can take a look at it,” he said, taking the tricorder from her. “Everything is electronic, these days. Isolinear, computerized. Come in.” He turned and went into his room. It was small, with a sleeping berth built into the wall, a small table and cooking unit nearby. A work table with tools and a chair took up an entire wall, and that was where he went, setting the tricorder on the table. He ran his fingers over it. “Not a bad piece of equipment,” he said. “Old Starfleet issue?”

"Yes. The TR-590. I think it's pre-Dominion war issue." She slowed in the middle of the room, curious about Radak's living space and worldly possessions. It wasn't spartan, but it was very utilitarian. She almost remarked that there was only one chair, except the fact that she had one chair less than Radak did checked her mouth. So he didn't entertain; he lived alone. Selfishly, she was relieved there weren't any obvious signs of a woman around, and the thought surprised herself. With a little start, she came back around to her purpose. "Uh, the battery is probably dead or corroded by now. I didn't have the right tools to open the casing. I didn't want to force it. It looks like it's in good condition on the outside."

“Yeah,” he said, running his fingers along the casing. “You never know with Starfleet issue. Maybe it sat in storage for its lifespan, maybe it got taken all around the galaxy, beat to hell, and replaced by a newer model. Like people.” He grabbed a tool and ran it along the seam of the casing, freeing the magnetic seal which strengthened the mechanical connectors. “Let’s see what we have here.”

Anxious to know, Yuliette moved closer at his side to see what Radak would find with the old tricorder.

He opened up the device and exposed the intricate pieces inside. “Don’t often get anything this sophisticated,” he admitted as he checked the components. “Starfleet issue, they’d usually just drop it in the replicator and make a new one instead of spend a lot of time on repairs. And if they wanted to repair it, they’d just plug in a little diagnostic tool to tell them what’s wrong.” He got some small tools and started checking the guts. “Hm. The battery is holding a charge. But...ah, the capacitor.”

"Can you fix it?" Yuliette bit her bottom lip with concern. "Will it need parts?"

“I can fix it,” he said. “Sit down, make yourself comfortable. It won’t take long. I can rig something up.” He turned towards her while he opened a drawer. “Wish I had a drink or something to offer. But it’s not really that kind of place.”

"That's alright. I'm not thirsty." She took off her satchel and looped it over the back of his chair, taking the singular seat. As Radak worked she examined nearby tools, trying to imagine what each was for. In her surgical suite she'd have a couple dozen types of clamps forceps, scissors, an array of laser scalpels, a suture kit, cauterizing tools... The tools here were different, but still for grasping and cutting and adhering. She felt a little like she was in someone else's surgery and she should scrub in and offer assistance. But he seemed to have it in hand. Propping her elbow on the table, she put her chin in her hand and just watched Radak work. "Is that thing there the capacitor? The little glossy bit?"

“I don’t know,” he said. He tapped the little glossy piece with the end of his tool. “It’s this one. I don’t know how glossy it is. He shrugged a little apologetically.

His knuckles were scraped and she wondered if that was from the work or from whatever altercation had happened to his face. "Who taught you? To repair things, I mean."

“Mostly myself. There was an old man on the ship before I came here who needed a pair of hands to do his work. His knees and back were getting bad. He was kind of like the general fixit man around there. Not really an engineer or anything. Just...hands on whatever. So he started showing me around things. I learned how to keep things going with some spit and high hopes.”

Yuliette sat back in the chair and picked up an interesting device, switching it on. It was some type of meter, she knew that much. Maybe she was holding it upside down. She flipped it around. She touched the reader nodes to the metallic side of the chair and some of the figures rose slightly. She put it on her palm and the readings didn't move. Curiously she extended it to Radak's visor. The meter readings jumped.

"Live wire." She said, demonstrating the meter readings to him.

He quirked a smile at that, looking at the meter. Tapping his eyepieces, Radak said, “Don’t let that thing fool you. All the power is coming out of these little babies.” He snapped the capacitor back into the casing and held it out to her. “Use that meter to tell me what reading you get off the tricorder, now.”

"Looks like... 12.7... squiggly units." She smirked as she had no idea what the little signs meant. "Which translates to 372 triple triangles." Yuliette enjoyed his quiet amusement as she watched him snap the tricorder casing back together. "Thank you." she said as he handed it back to her. As she gathered up her satchel and stood, she felt self aware. Yuliette wanted to offer him payment for the help but she was fairly sure he wouldn't accept it, which left them both at an awkward, unspoken impasse. After a moment of biting her bottom lip and looking at his cut lip, she searched her bag and came up with a half used container of salve in her kit. "It's for bruising. It's a little greasy but it heals the deeper tissue much faster. It's from a kind of cactus." She explained. It wasn't exactly a trade as much as she felt Radak had taken care of her and she could do something to take care of Radak too.

She was pleased when he accepted it and she pushed the chair back in under the table. "I hope you don't have any more occupational hazards. I guess... I'll see you around." Yuliette held the tricorder against her heart and let herself out.

 

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