Quick Fix, Part 1
Posted on Thu Feb 6th, 2025 @ 8:40pm by Crewman Mateo Gardel & Petty Officer 3rd Class Helliun Inant
Edited on on Sat Feb 15th, 2025 @ 11:00pm
3,096 words; about a 15 minute read
Mission:
To Boldly Go
Location: Medical Science Lab 1, Deck 7, USS Fenrir
Timeline: Day 11
[ON]
The flash on the PADD blinked at PO3 Helliun Inant's peripheral vision, alerting her that a new task had been added to her ever-increasing list. As an enlisted in Starfleet, you got used to having things added. It was either done by an Officer, or the computer itself based on algorithms that Hel was decently sure she could alter. Yet, there was no need. She liked working. Her people were nothing if not hard workers.
And by the Sands and Stars, it was different being on a ship that had not launched yet. None of the day in and day out of well-greased machinery against the harsh razor storms. No, this was a work in progress, people tinkering everywhere. Yes, the retrofit was done and those engineers and workers had gone back to their starbase, to sleep in their own soft beds. Now, the new crew of the vessel were taking over, marking the ship in ways that experience and preference dictated rather than manuals.
Hel had found in her experience, being an Engineer was more about the feel than the blueprints. Yes, every specification listed carefully what worked, how and why and diagrams and workflow charts. What it did not show was the small things. A warp core that had odd fluctuations at different times. A decoupler that you had to adjust by 0.03 every time. The fact two deck plates weren't quite aligned so it dropped the console with 1.2cm. Small things that told you that a ship was a living thing, due to the people that inhabited it.
She finally looked at the PADD, her rust-coloured hair braided away from her face. A bit messy, it was just the coarseness of her hair. Not much to do about that, so she never bothered. The PADD told her to report to Medical Science Laboratory 1 on Deck 7. The issue itself had been listed as 'power issues', which to Hel could mean anything. She sighed and grabbed her toolkit, stretching her body before she headed up.
She was familiar with Deck 7. Medical was here and she had already been screened on the starbase. She had another due soon. Due to her people's constitution, the fear was never her getting sick: but for her to carry something that would infect others. Her people were the perfect carriers, asymptomatic and strong. Still, so far she had been clear. That helped. She would be happy when things had settled and her appointments could be done ad hoc.
She headed straight to the lab, the doors opening for her. So at least it wasn't a door issue, that helped.
The doors to the medical sciences lab parted with a soft hiss, admitting the engineer, but Mateo barely had time to register her presence before the stark realization set in:
He was definitely not supposed to be messing with this.
Still crouched near the workstation, fingers wrapped around the power coupling he had absolutely made worse, he froze for half a second—like a kid caught mid-crime with a hand deep in the proverbial cookie jar. His dark eyes flicked toward the newly arrived engineer, expression briefly unreadable as his brain scrambled to recalibrate.
Then, with a tight inhale through his nose, he very deliberately let go of the coupling and pushed himself to his feet in a slow, measured movement—casual, like he hadn't just spent the last hour turning what was probably a minor systems hiccup into a full-blown inconvenience.
His face was carefully neutral, but there was tension in his shoulders, a subtle tightness in the way his jaw set. He hated feeling like he’d made a mess of things, especially in his own lab, and the thought that he might’ve caused unnecessary damage was already gnawing at the edges of his nerves.
Dragging a hand through his dark hair, he exhaled and finally gave the engineer a proper once-over.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Rust-colored skin. Paler facial markings. Braided hair. A scar left unhealed—not an accident, a choice. A piercing in her nose—a cultural marker, if he remembered correctly.
Axan.
That was… interesting. He wasn’t sure if she was the only Axan on the Fenrir, but she was the first he’d come across. And if he weren’t in the middle of whatever this was, he’d probably be a lot more engaged in cataloging the finer details of seeing one of her species up close.
Right now, though? Right now, he had bigger concerns.
“So, uh.” Mateo shifted his weight, rubbing his palms against the thighs of his uniform pants like he could physically rid himself of the secondhand embarrassment radiating off his own body. He gestured—vaguely, awkwardly—at the workstation. “Power issue. Obviously.”
His lips pressed together, eyes darting to the flickering biomicroscopes before he let out a slow breath. “I, uh… tried fixing it.”
A pause.
His mouth twisted like he was tasting something sour, and then, through the kind of forced nonchalance that only made his guilt more obvious, he muttered, “Didn’t go great.”
Another beat.
Then, with an expression that somehow managed to be both deeply uncomfortable and deeply resigned, he scrubbed a hand over his face, sighed, and finally admitted, “Might’ve made it worse.”
There was a pause—just long enough for the weight of the admission to settle—before he exhaled sharply and tacked on, grudgingly, “…My bad.”
His eyes flicked toward her toolkit, and then, as if he could somehow preemptively lower her expectations, he added, voice dropping just a fraction, “I know I’m not supposed to mess with it.”
And he did. He knew.
Didn’t stop him, though.
Hel studied the male in front of her, considering. She guessed human, just because there were so many of them in Starfleet. He could be a number of other species though. Betazoid? Eyes weren't quite dark enough though. Not Bajoran, the nose was wrong. She let him talk, her eyes going to the sandsnake's nest of what had once been the inner workings of the work station. Her eyes went over him again, to his rank insignia, to the way he stood there.
And then her face broke into a grin.
It showed too many teeth, as it always did, a predator's smile. And her eyebrow rose, her yellow eyes focused on him.
"Well, that happens," she said and straightening her arm out to the side. The toolkit's strap followed to her hand and she then dropped it to the ground with a heavy thud. "Looks like you got working on it well, must remember to bring you to Engineering if I get bored."
She undid the top of her jumpsuit and pushed it down, so she could tie the arms around her waist, revealing the vest she wore underneath. She knelt and opened the toolkit, to pull out a scarf she then used to cover her hair, pulling it back from her face. "I'm Hel. Don't worry, I'll fix it and no officer will be the wiser."
Mateo hadn’t realized just how tense he’d been until he saw the way Hel reacted.
Not irritation. Not exasperation. No critical sigh or sharp-edged remark about leaving things to the professionals. Just a grin.
A grin that immediately sent a shudder down his spine.
It wasn’t intentional. Just—reflex. An immediate, involuntary response coded into something old, something buried in the back of the brain, the part that still remembered what it meant to be prey.
Because that wasn’t a normal, casual smile. That was a too-wide, too-sharp flash of teeth, something that set his instincts rattling even as his logical brain reminded him—firmly—that she wasn’t a threat. Not to him, anyway.
Still.
Mateo exhaled, shaking off the reaction almost as quickly as it hit him. His shoulders—tight with the quiet, simmering anxiety of possibly having broken something vital in his own damn lab—eased just a fraction when she moved to drop her toolkit, unfastening her jumpsuit and tying the arms around her waist.
His relief was palpable, even if it didn’t fully settle just yet.
Because sure, maybe she could fix it. Maybe it wasn’t that bad. Maybe he hadn’t actually caused permanent damage to the equipment he’d spent the past week meticulously organizing.
But he wasn’t celebrating until he saw those microscopes power on without flickering like malfunctioning Christmas lights.
Instead, he focused on her.
For the first time, really focused.
His eyes tracked the easy, practiced movements as she retrieved a scarf, pulling it over her head to secure her hair. She was methodical, efficient in a way that suggested experience rather than just habit.
Her skin—rust-colored, sunbaked—was entirely unlike his own. He studied the pale markings across her face, the way they contrasted against the deep reds and oranges of her complexion. He had seen images before, in research reports and xenobiology texts, but seeing it was something else.
Then there were her eyes.
Yellow. Not just in the way some human irises caught the light, not the hazel-gold undertones he had seen before. These were fully yellow—sharp, striking, set beneath an expressive brow that had lifted ever so slightly as she regarded him.
Even now, as she knelt to start unpacking tools, something about her presence demanded analysis.
Mateo’s fingers twitched. The scientist in him—the part that craved new data, that thrived on understanding things—was practically vibrating.
Still, he hesitated before speaking.
Not because he didn’t want to ask.
But because he knew how it felt to be treated like a curiosity.
Even so, the question came, careful but undeniably intrigued.
“Axan,” he said, more statement than question. His head tilted slightly, lips pressing together in brief consideration before he added, “Axan’ka, specifically. Right?”
His gaze flicked downward, toward the distinctive unhealed scar on her face, the nose piercing that set her apart further.
“I’ve read about your species,” he admitted, a little more cautiously. “But I haven’t met one before.” A pause, and then—because he wasn’t going to pretend he wasn’t curious—he exhaled a quiet huff and tacked on, “You’re nothing like I pictured.”
Then, belatedly—because wow, that had been a lot of observation before so much as exchanging names—he shifted his weight, scrubbed a hand through his hair, and added, “Uh. Right. I’m Mateo.”
A small, fleeting smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“Figured I should actually say that instead of letting you piece it together from my stunning display of problem-solving skills.”
Hel stopped as she heard her species said so casually. It wasn't often someone clocked what she was. Usually they asked and she answered. It made her feel...seen, in a different way. It explained why he hadn't blurted out anything on her appearance though. Lately, most she encountered asked if the dermal regenerator was broken, or why she chose to have such an unsightly scars.
As for him, she saw the piercings. Amongst her people, males didn't wear piercing. It was strange seeing a male have them, yet they suited him. He did look...fragile, like many humans did. Yet she knew better. She knew they were a resilient species. That was, if he was human. Oh! El-Aurian was also an option.
She smiled as she moved to the work station, sitting on the floor and looking at the damage, leaning forward to almost push all of her head into the mangled guts of the work station. Yes, it was a mess.
Didn't mean she couldn't fix it though. This was nothing in comparison to what she had worked on back home.
"Stars gaze upon you, Mateo," she said and looked at him before she reached in with no hesitation into the mess...and yanked hard, watching things unspool in her hands. It was best to start a bit fresher and some of these could do with being replaced anyway. The isolinear chips looked good though, even if they were dull without any power to them.
"Yeah, there's not many of us around in the 'Fleet. Unless you're working within resources, then you'd see us a lot. We are not...that special. Less frightening than a Klingon, better teeth...less aggressive," she looked at him and gave a shrug, as if saying 'and that is just how it is'. One always compared with what one were familiar with. "And what are you? I am guessing human, if only because I've never seen a species breed in such multitudes as humans."
Mateo had already resigned himself to watching Hel work—he needed to see her fix this, needed to know that everything would function again exactly as it should—but when she sat down on the floor beside the workstation, he hesitated for only a moment before following suit.
It was instinctive.
Settling cross-legged a short distance away, he kept enough space between them for her to work unimpeded but stayed close enough to feel involved, his sharp eyes tracking every movement as she leaned in with what could only be described as reckless confidence and reached deep into the tangled guts of the workstation.
Then—without hesitation—she yanked.
Mateo flinched, barely suppressing a wince as wires and components came loose in her hands, unraveling like the innards of some dying machine.
For a beat, he almost protested.
Then he caught the ease in her expression—no tension, no concern, no oops, I’ve just made it worse—and forced himself to unclench.
Instead, he redirected his energy into something useful.
Twisting slightly, he reached for the toolkit she had dropped earlier, dragging it toward himself. His fingers flipped the clasps open with smooth efficiency, revealing an array of tools—many of which he could guess the function of, but none of which he was remotely qualified to use.
Fine. He wasn’t using them. He was just handing them over.
His fingers hovered over the selection before he glanced at Hel.
“You’re gonna have to tell me what’s what,” he admitted, mouth curving slightly at the corner. “Or, like, where it is in here. Otherwise, this is just guesswork, and I don’t think either of us wants that.”
There was a lightness to the words, but beneath it, an unspoken Here, let me help.
His attention flickered briefly back to the mess she was currently dismantling, his expression shifting, thoughtful now rather than anxious.
"Stars gaze upon you, Mateo."
The phrase had stood out to him immediately—less because of what she said and more because of how she said it. There had been something weighty about it, something significant, and now that the immediate pressure of holy shit, is my lab ruined had started to lift, his mind latched onto it fully.
He tipped his head slightly, studying her sidelong.
“That thing you said,” he mused. “Stars gaze upon you. That’s… what? A greeting? Blessing? Or are the stars literally watching me?” A pause. His lips twitched. “Because if they are, I deeply regret about half the choices I made yesterday.”
Then, without missing a beat, he tacked on, dryly, “And should probably apologize for half of what they observed. Actually, you know what, no. That’s their fault for being voyeuristic little peeping-Toms.”
Still, there was a sincerity beneath the sarcasm—a genuine desire to understand.
His gaze flicked to her hands, taking in the way she handled the exposed components without hesitation, moving with the kind of confidence that came from knowing something inside and out.
She had said her species wasn’t that special. Watching her now, the statement felt absurd. Not special? He didn’t buy that for a second.
His fingers tapped idly against the side of the toolkit, a tell that his mind was already turning over the thought.
Then, as if to balance out the thoughtfulness with something a little more him, his nose scrunched faintly at her next remark.
Breeding.
It wasn’t that it was inaccurate, or even crude—it just wasn’t something he had ever considered with any real depth. Reproduction as a biological function? Sure. But reproduction as it pertained to him personally?
That was a hard no.
“Yeah,” he confirmed, dragging his free hand through his dark hair. “Human. Good guess.”
A beat.
Then, rubbing the back of his neck, he added, “But, uh. Not the breeding kind.”
The moment the words left his mouth, he could feel the warmth creeping up his neck—a heat that spread rapidly across his olive skin, pooling in his cheeks with deep mortification.
Fantastic.
Of all the ways he could have phrased that, that was what his brain had settled on?
His eyes flicked downward for half a second—regrouping, reprocessing, regretting—before he forced himself to meet Hel’s gaze again, pretending like he wasn’t currently dying inside.
He exhaled, slow and measured, before tacking on, deadpan, “That sounded way weirder out loud than it did in my head.”
Then, hoping to move past that as quickly as possible, he cleared his throat and shrugged. “Just… y’know. Not something I’ve ever thought about. Personally. At all.”
Subtle. Smooth.
Completely unconvincing.
And judging by the lingering heat in his face, it was very obvious that he was absolutely thinking about it right now.
[To be continued in part 2]
Crewman Mateo Gardel
Medical Science Specialist
USS Fenrir
&
Petty Officer Helliun 'Hel' Inant
Engineering Officer
USS Fenrir
[PNPC - Hanlon]
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