"Just another day at the job..."

[Karrigan 0]

The destination was the local government building which has been damaged from the continuous planetary earthquakes. Every now and then, people on the planet as well as the away teams can feel the ground vibrate or shake. It’s impossible to predict when or where the next big quake will be. Felix looked up to see that they are almost at the building. He turned to T’lak, “Well, we’re almost there. And by the looks of it, we’re gonna be here for a long time.”

 

T’lak looks up from her tricorder and in a sarcastic tone, “Wonderful…Well, what exactly are we supposed to be doing here again?”

 

“Kairi said we need to check up on that government building right there and see what we can do to fix it…or avoid total structure collapse,” Felix looked up, then glanced around. They were about 100 meters from the entrance gates of the building. The structure was easy to spot. The government building was a dome-shaped building with decorations and designs different from the structures around it. Like the other structures the away teams have seen, the government building was damaged with the east roof of the structure caved in.

 

T’lak shaking her head, "Such a shame, I'm sure in its prime this building would have been beautiful, I'd say the best thing we can do is to brace the rest of the structure and maybe cover the hole over there.”

 

Felix nods his head in agreement. As they walked closer to the building, there are people working around cleaning and fixing the damages. Some smiled as they walked passed the engineering crew. Their faces filled with concerns, confusion, and exhaustion. Then out of nowhere, someone yelled not far from the distance, “Hey!!”

 

T'Lak turns toward the voice while Felix almost dropped his tricorder as he starts to reach for the phaser on his right leg.

 

“Yeah you two over there,” a Bolian man walked up to them and by the looks of it, he must be a colonist on the planet. Beside the humanoid was some kind of a droid. The droid has six legs just like a spider (although a spider has eight legs…but anyways). It has a spherical head with three tube-like instruments stinking out of it…maybe imitating two eyes and a squid-like mouth.

 

“Are you guys one of ‘em Starfleet people?”

 

Felix relaxed a little discovering that it was just a Bolian colonist.

 

“Yes, we're starfleet," T'Lak says with a smile.

 

“Good…good. Umm…Can you guys do me a big favor?” the Bolian asked without even waiting for an answer, “I need to get this droid to the Council room in that building right there…(pointing at the government building)..this droid needs to survey the damage, but I just got called to fix a food replicator in one of the evacuation tents. Can you guys bring this droid to the Council room? It would be very helpful.”

 

“Umm…yeah sure,” Felix looking at T’lak for agreement, “We’re going that way anyways.”

 

T'lak nods in agreement.

 

The Bolian sighed in relief as he’s body went from very tense to not too tense, “Thank you so much! Just to let you guys know, this droid is very special…I made it myself!” He runs off leaving (or trusting) the droid with Felix and T’lak without even saying a word.

 

The two el tees just stared at the droid for about 5 seconds then surprisingly the droid responded, “Greetings humanoids. I am MA-47 Damage Survey/Assessment Droid. My purpose is to survey any structural damages and report them to humanoid engineers.”

 

“whoa!” Felix jumped getting ready to go karate kid on the talking droid, “Jeez…you talk?!”

 

T'lak jumps as the droid speaks. "Yikes!"

 

The droid turns to Felix (just like a spider), “Well yes, I can “talk” as you humanoids call it…I didn’t mean to scare you two but I just felt introductions are necessary before we proceed.”

 

“You can feel too?!” Felix said surprisingly, “First, unstable planet…then engineers pretending to be architects…now a talking droid…awesome. What’s next? And o yeah, my name is Felix Karrigan.”

 

T’lak nudged Felix with an elbow, which hits his ribs, “Ow…and this is my partner T’Lak.”

 

“Hello Felix and T’lak, shall we proceed?” The droid turns away and starts to walk towards the building.

 

Felix whispers to T’Lak, “You know you didn’t have to hit me.” T'lak nudges Felix again then whispers, "Ok that droid is kind of creepy."

 

“Yeah tell me about it.” The two of them quicken their pace to catch up on the droid. As they walked, Felix feels his throat drying. He grabs his pack from his back and unzips it. He then takes out a Starfleet issued water canteen. He turns to T’lak, “You want some?”

 

“Sure," T'Lak grabs the canteen."It's kinda nice here." Only taking a sip then she hands it back to Felix.

 

Felix takes the canteen then smiles, “Hey maybe the droid wants some.” T’lak's face bunches up as though she is trying not to laugh, but fails and she ends up holding her sides and laughing like a hyena.

 

Felix still smiling, “What? Hold on..let me ask….hey droid, you want some of…” He didn’t see a fairly medium-sized rock ahead of him as he trips losing a handle on the canteen. His eyes widen as the canteen spills towards the droid. By the time he recovered, the canteen wasn’t in his hands anymore. T'lak's eyes go wide as she sees the droid short circuit from the water spill. A flash of anger goes across her face but she quickly reigns it in. The droid short circuits then stops in its tracks, and because it could “talk”, the droid starts to make weird sounds… “bzz…pfft…uh oh…Error..squirrel!...Error…No water….please….” Then finally the droid dies with a last small puff of smoke.

 

“Smooth Move Felix...," T'lak says as she starts to get that angry look on her face again.

 

Felix is still shocked then smacks his forehead, “Great…I didn’t see the rock…but,…just great….” He kneels down to examine the droid…. “umm…I think I can find…or we can find a way to fix it…”

 

T'lak grabs the rock and hurls it as far as she can throw.

 

Felix puts his hand on the droid…smacks it once…then smacks it harder the second time but with no luck, “We’ll need to open him up…” T’lak shakes her head and breathes deeply to try and corral her temper. "Let me grab my tricorder."

 

Felix opens his tool kit, grabs a hyperspanner, and starts to open the maintenance compartment of the droid.

 

She thinks to herself, "I'm definitely going to need some meditation time when i get back to the ship. They really should make these things waterproof," she says while scanning the interior as she kneels near the hatch.

 

Felix has successfully opened the panel then starts to twitch his hyperspanner in there hoping something would react. Then he noticed that the HK-Core Generator (aka Speech generator) is fried and so as the power unit.

 

"It's bad isn't it?"

 

Felix slowly nods, “Unfortunately. We can find a power unit…but this HK generator is a problem. No worries, I’ve worked on these kinds of generators before....8 years ago” Felix gets closer as he carefully takes out the generator…hoping that none of the other systems are affected. After a few minutes, he successfully takes out the generator to get a better look at it. “So what you think?”

 

“It's totaled."

 

“I believe I can restore this generator…” Felix says as he tweaks the generator with a small pen-like tool, “Alright…hopefully this works.” He begins to install the generator back onto the droid’s core.

 

“Good luck," she says shaking her head. “Better cross your fingers," T'lak says as she does the same.

 

After the installation, Felix reboots the droid using the back-up power unit he had brought with him. The droid fired up to life for 3 seconds then dies. After about 10 seconds, the droid fires up to life again. “MA-47. Can you hear me?” The droid just turns its head side to side. Once again the young Ensign asked, “Can you hear me MA-47?”

 

The droid finally responded, “bzzz..pfft..water…” Felix looks at T’lak, then slams a fist onto the droid. “Greetings humanoids.” Felix was so relieved but then the droid starts to speaks again but in a soft, child-like voice as though it was crying, “…ohh nooo…the planet, whats wrong with the planet…so much death and destruction…I can’t do this I quit…Think of the children..I’m a surveyor not a martyr."

 

Felix glances at T’lak, “Oops…” The droid continues, “This is horrible…did you know I’ve never met my mother…I just want to hear her voice …but noo… ” T'lak goes over to hug the scared droid.

 

"It's ok , we are here to help." That's very sad," she says looking over to Felix. She suddenly mouths, "What are we going to do with it now?"

 

“Yeah erm..T’lak…I think I messed up..I need to adjust its HK generator again. Move aside.” Felix kneels down then tweaks the generator once again, “There I think I fixed it…”

 

The droid stops again..then looks side to side. Finally it begins to speak…but this time in a friendly, flirting but annoying tone, “What do we..have..here…hey there cutie,” Turns to T’lak, “I believe we haven’t met…I’m MA-47….Want a drink?”

 

“Um Felix," T'lak replies in a rather distressed tone. She gives the “kill it” signal.

 

Felix scratches his head, “Erm…nope, not quite fixed yet…” The droid then turns to Felix and says in a rather jealous, competitive tone, “Hey I know some tricks…how about some magic tricks..Wanna see a trick? Yes?...I’ll need a pencil…” The droid was cut off as Felix begins to work on it again...

 

“ There I hope this works…”

 

The droid again stops…then looks side to side…then speaks in a very familiar voice, “Space... the Final Frontier, these are the voyages of the starship ...(static)…bzzz..…to explore strange new worlds...(static).. to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before…”

 

“Who is that?" says a very confused T’lak.

 

Felix scratching his head, “Is that…is that who I think it is.…I think that was Benjamin Sisko….or was it Janeway?...hmm…or is it Colonel Harper? Kansas?... Sounds very familiar…”

 

The open panel of the droid sparked a couple of times then finally collapsed and dies down with the droid’s head falling to the ground then explodes…

 

“It's a lost cause," T'Lak says as she goes over to pick up the shattered head of the droid in a Shakespearian move.

 

“Aha! That voice…That was Spock!” Felix said excitingly with a hyperspanner in the air.

Edited May 11, 2009 by Karrigan