19th Century Tools

Posted on Fri Jun 28th, 2024 @ 9:06am by Lieutenant Katherine "Kit" Vulpes & Lieutenant William Neil

1,459 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: The Trafalgar Roll
Location: The Barn

Kit tossed the jacket of her sailor's uniform over a fence rail before stepping over to the small fire. Most of the rest of the crew that had assembled in the barn had settled into various stalls or in the hay loft to rest. Kit was still awake. She'd stepped outside, set up a small fire--for warmth, and light and heat to work by--and was battling exhaustion after spending several hours working at the smith that afternoon.

She'd worked part of the fire to embers, and shifted the two logs she was working on closer to that section of the fire. She laid out the pieces of metal that she'd smelted from the extra badge and the pips, and cracked open her own badge to expose the circuitry inside.

William did a quick perimeter check around the barn when he spotted the small fire near the fence. He stuck his hands in his pockets and wandered over casually. A grin came across his face as he recognized the telltale signs of someone making something out of nothing.

"How many comm badges does it take to build a time machine?" He joked under his breath as he sat across the fire from Kit. He hadn't been on the ship long before this so he wasn't certain who everyone was, but someone so casual with the technology was most likely to have an engineering background.

"I'm William Neil." He offered by way of introduction. "Anything I can lend a hand with?"

"Give me a couple of minutes to plan this out, and I might just take you up on that offer." Kit smirked but didn't look up as she tilted the open badge towards the fire, trying to get a better look at the circuitry in the dim light. "And the answer to that question is two." She used her chin to gesture to the slivers of hammered metal laid on the log in front of her. "Two comm badges, and four pips...plus one more pip to bribe the smithy with. Pretty sure that someone in command is going to pitch a fit about me putting one of those into circulation centuries before tritanium is a thing."

Kit set the badge back on the log, using her fingernail to pry up the edge of the circuit board, exposing the other side. She took that moment to glance up. "But I suppose they can't fuss at me if I don't find a way to contact the ship, right?" The circuit panel came out with a *pop*.

"Tritanium is only a thing if they could figure it out before it gets lost to time." William said with a sigh, thinking about their own predicament.

"If I know my history, it wouldn't even be worth it to contact the Vulcans at this point if we could. They didn't figure out time travel until the 22nd century with the rest of us so we'd just end up contaminating everything."

William watched Kit work. It was interesting to see her skilled hands tinker with the comm badge parts. It brought back some not so pleasant memories, but that was a good reminder of what people with passion and drive could accomplish.

Kit let out a breath that might have hinted at a strained laugh. "Look, I'm pretty good at metal-working, but I would need several more days to--" She bit her lip, cutting off her thought. She was a Chief now. Better to act the part. "Best I can try for is to boost the signal enough for a clear conversation with the Victory. No shot at Vulcan, I'm afraid."

She tilted the open badge towards the fire, taking a better look at the insides in the light. "If I can be honest, Mr. Neil...I'm hoping that whomever they've got left up there in Engineering can figure out a solution before I do."

"A good leader knows to trust in their team." William replied with a nod. "We're resourceful enough to figure this out. You've got a head start as far as I can tell."

He looked into the fire for a moment before continuing. "I'm no engineer, But I've had to adapt to some strange situations before. I'm an extra set of hands if you need."

Kit glanced up from the badge. She had seen that look--from several crew members--over the last day. That look of exasperation at their helplessness in the situation, especially given that some other entity seemed to be pulling the strings. "Know anything about fire?" She gave a nod with her head to the growing blaze in front of her. "I'll need to get a healthy bed of coals going so I can warm the metal up enough to flex it a bit."

"You've got yourself a stoker chief." William said with a smile as he readjusted himself a little closer to the fire and fed it some more dry wood to keep it going.

"So tell me," William said as he pocketed a small interesting piece of wood. "I didn't think they taught 19th century smithing in the engineering track. Hobby of yours?"

"You could say that." Kit chuckled softly. "Much to the chagrin of my older brothers. I grew up in a place that looked a lot like all of this, and went out of its way to emulate this kind of simplicity. Aside from the weather control systems, which my father worked on, the lack of technology was... purposeful."

She leaned over her stump, turning the circuit board over in her fingers in the firelight. "I think I started smithing just to spite my brothers, but I got decently good at it. I've made a couple of blades, but I think I enjoyed making more artistic things. There's a metal floral arrangement on the shelf in my office in Engineering that I made before I left the colony."

William nodded and smiled. "If you ever do get the urge to make a blade, I could use a good pocket knife. In all the rush of getting tossed through time I forgot mine back in my quarters."

"I'll even trade you. A knife for whatever this turns out to be." He pulled the oddly shaped piece of wood from his pocket and held it in the light. "Too small to get a flower out of, but I might be able to carve a charm."

Kit chuckled as she began arranging the bits and pieces of smelted metal on her log, as if arranging a place setting. "Well, if we get stuck here, I seem to have made a good impression with the blacksmith in the few hours I spent there. We wind up stuck in this timeline, I'm pretty sure I can get a job as a smith. A trade can be arranged."

She reached behind her, grabbing another branch and passing it over for the fire. "Woodcarving is another one of those skills you don't see much in Starfleet. When did you start?"

"Always widdled." William replied. "But I got into it during my time with the Orions. It passed the time and gave me something to focus on besides the crappy food."

"I hope carving a bit of wood won't affect the timeline." William muttered quietly as a joke. "We get back the the world will be overrun with carpenter ants."

"Can't say that ants are the worst thing that Starfleet has encountered." Kit went quiet for a moment, picking up one of the metal lengths and holding it up in the light. "Orions can't have been easy."

"No," William said softly. "They weren't. I can't speak for all of them, but the ones I encountered didn't value life much beyond the work that had to be done." He paused for a moment. "Of course, when the time came I can't say their lives were valued much at all."

"For all of our evolution as a galactic society, sometimes things still don't change." Kit gave a sigh as she passed another thick branch to William for the fire. She was quiet for a few minutes as she worked to flex the warmed metal with the peen of her small hammer. "We get on the other side of whatever tomorrow brings, and you have a deal. A proper whittling knife in exchange for something made with it."

William propped the branch up against the other wood he'd been placing, attempting his best to make a sort of nest around where Kit was working. "Well now we both have another reason to get past tomorrow."

Kit smiled. Taking a deep breath, she leaned in to her work, enjoying the crackle of the fire and the company as she set to finding a way to reach the ship.

 

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