[backsim] Mikali sh'Shar - Andorian Blues: The Boxes, Part I

[David Adams]

(( OOC: Song for this set of sims: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJPMnTXl63E&ab_channel=PowfuVEVO ))

(( Remote hut, 100km out of Yaristia, Palanon ))

With the Klingon K'Turk's ship fixed and the source of his technical problems revealed, Mikali went about the second thing she was to do on Palanon before returning to Iana Station.

One of the useful things about a multi-year service history in Starfleet was that latinum built up over the years. Mikali owned a tidy sum, significantly depleted after all that time, but definitely enough to cover any kind of issue or a major expense. She, of course, had no need for it most of the time and while she was not rich, when currency was needed, it was there. And now it was needed.

To this end, Mikali exchanged some of this latinum for the use of a small, remote, rural hut on Palanon that had everything she needed. Enough room to work, supplies, proper ventilation, tools, specialised equipment, power. And privacy.

She dumped her backpack off at the door, and a heavy duffel bag full of tools immediately afterwards. First, it was time to eat. Mikali felt like something new. Something different.

sh'Shar: Computer, replicate meal. Random selection, traditional Human food for one.

Computer: Selected Ukranian-style lamb pirozhki, serving medium.

A soft shower of blue sparks signalled the arrival of her dinner. A series of four small buns, obviously stuffed with something. She'd never had it before, and whatever pirozhki was it didn't smell too good, but she was hungry and so carted the plate off to her workbench.

Mikali bit into the first of the soft buns, a wave of disgust washing over her as the taste hit her tongue. Bitter and off-putting and dry. Just plain awful, like eating stale bread stuffed with off meat.

sh'Shar: Ugh, gross. This can't possibly be considered food on that planet. Guk. ::She swallowed with a mighty effort, face wrinkling up.:: Maybe that's why the Xindi attacked them. For the sin of pirozhki.

The remains of the meal were recycled into the tiny, rustic replicator, returned to energy. How anyone could like the bitter, tasteless junk was beyond her. Instead, she had her usual hasperat, which was delicious as always, and then it was time to work.

It was a strange task ahead of her. She'd never done this before. The missing eye would probably make it harder. But there was a first time for everything, and at the end of the day, it didn't matter if she messed it up. It was the thought that counted.

The far corner of her humble, rented brick hut was the star of the show. The device she had ordered there had been delivered and installed just like she'd requested.

An Andorian style anvil, furnace, and mechanical bellows. Traditional equipment. Beside them were the materials she would need... iron ingots, large sacks of charcoal, smaller bags of powdered carbon, zabathu-leather strips. A heavy hammer and protective gear, a large steel tub full of water, and a set of plans.

And three Tyrellian-oakwood boxes. One as small as a fist. One the length of her arm. One half-way between them. Each with a steel latch and black, soft padding within.

Having eaten, there was no point waiting around and she had a lot to do. Mikali donned the protective gear, a helmet, gloves and apron, broke open the bags of charcoal, picked up the shovel and piled black piles of the stuff into the furnace. She wasn't sure exactly how much to put in, but a lot seemed like a good idea. She turned on the bellows, and with the push of an ignitor the hut's interior lit up as the flame caught, the charcoal glowing as it burned. An electronic device pushed the exhaust into a reclaimer where it was turned into energy.

The bellows pumped, the furnace growled and the temperature climbed. Up past a thousand degrees, then to two, levelling off at two thousand two hundred. Well shy of the twenty-five hundred needed to fully metal the steel, which was by design. She wanted a malleable hunk, not a puddle.

Mikali scattered fistfuls of powdered carbon across the anvil's surface. Hopefully, the black powder would be beaten into the metal over time. Rather than uniformly high-carbon steel, the express purpose was to create a metal alloy where the outer layers were high strength carbon, while the insides were soft, yielding low carbon. The metal, therefore, would bend, but be hard and resistant to impacts while not being brittle.

Then it was time to really begin. Using tongs, she inserted the first of the iron ingots into the fire, letting it absorb the heat of the furnace. The dark metal glowed a faint pink, turning bright red, yellow, growing and becoming white-hot.

Patience. Not something Mikali sh'Shar was known for, but idly wait she did. And only when it was ready did she withdraw the metal, laying it out on the anvil's surface, repositioning it until the ingot was ready to be worked, holding the iron fast with the tongs. Satisfied, she picked up the hammer, raised it above her head, and struck.

Clang.

Sparks flew in all directions and black carbon powder puffed out around her. Such a satisfying sound. She struck again, cautious at first, but with growing ferocity. It bent and shaped as she struck, but after some amount of blows, the metal began to cool, resisting her strikes. She relented and returned it to the furnace, waiting impatiently as the metal's temperature climbed more. A scattering more carbon was reapplied to the anvil while she waited.

As soon as it was ready, she snapped the white-hot iron out of the heat, slapped the other side down on the anvil and began striking once more, her strong Andorian arm bringing the hammer down again and again.

Andoria was cold but its people were bubbling hot crucibles of emotion. Anger simmered below the surface of many of Andoria's children, hotter than the softened metal, and Mikali had been bottling up her fire for too long. Spent too long trying to be good, swallowing her internal fire, her anger, her outrage, her guilt. She slammed the hammer down on the metal, the reverberations hurting her arm with the force of it, a hurting that felt good.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

Each beat shaped the doughy lump, flattening it, drawing out the spines that would cut ice and flesh alike. She channelled her sadness, her frustration, her fury, her pain into each blow. As a dark thought reared itself in her mind she beat the metal until it complied, just a little, bending to her will. If she couldn't force the galaxy to be what she wanted, she could at least control this aspect of her life.

Out there she had to work hard, she had to be polite, she had to bite back sarcastic and bitter remarks. Out there she had to stress and worry, always trying to impress a universe of people who despised her and just wanted her to go away. Out there she had to be good. But in here... whatever cruel, selfish thought bubbled to the surface could be unfettered.

In the forge, she could let the devil out.

Mikali sh'Shar bundled her problems up into little problems, forced them into the metal, and beat them.

Andorian Child Protective Services had taken Benna from her.

Clang.

Starfleet Admirals had taken her commission from her.

Clang.

People judged her because of a mistake over six years ago.

Clang.

Ketracel had ruined her career, turning her from a wide-eyed idealistic child into junkie scum who didn't deserve the second chance she'd been given, let alone a third.

Clang.

She'd let down the crew of the Avandar, the Independence, and even Iana Station. She'd let down everyone who ever cared about her.

Clang.

The counsellor who tormented her, making every visit an emotional lodestone to her heart, crushing her spirit and reducing her to a simpering mess.

Clang.

The boss who hated her, filling her head with flattery and lies, trying to build her up with silly notions that she could be something.

Clang.

Her eye had broken. And she'd ignored it until it had nearly killed her.

Clang. 

She'd made a scene in her quarters, having to get her useless blue butt saved again. By Tasha, whom she was already indebted to. Debts piled up on debts.

Clang.

S'Acul.

Clang.

Alleran.

Clang.

Catscratch.

Clang.

Xhard.

Clang.

Benna.

Clang.

Stupid dreams of being a career-rebuilding counsellor when she wasn't even halfway out of her own spin in the "career spin-dry".

Clang.

Stupid dreams of getting Benna back in her life. As though she deserved it.

Clang.

Stupid dreams of having a family, friends, people who trusted her and who wouldn't just leave her when it was convenient.

Clang.

Stupid dreams of thinking she could be worth something to anyone.

Clang.

Stupid. Just stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.

Clang.

Her blows flattened the metal, thinning it out, turning the ingot into an ovoid disk. She tilted it this way and that, adding heat and carbon as she worked, dragging the tips out into sharp points. The centre of the white-hot disk was knocked out, shaped into a handle, beaten until it formed a grip comfortable enough for an Andorian hand. The long flat edge, like a stegosaurus's back, was beaten into two dozen or so sharp points, the half-made thing slowly starting to resemble a three-quarters-made thing.

Heat. Carbon. Beating. Heat. Carbon. Beating. A cycle of impatiently waiting followed by furious thumping. 

Slowly, by repeated impacts of a hardened titanium hammer and the application of unskilled but enthusiastic blunt force, the lump of metal changed. Under her effort, it became something.

An Ushaan-tor.

Mikali used her thick gloves to pick up the red hot metal by its grip. Her arms ached, the muscles worn to fatigue, and she barely found the strength to lift it, but this was a crucial part of the forging. 

Holding the glowing weapon aloft, she stepped over to the steel tub and plunged the weapon into the water.

Instantly tub hissed and bubbled, steam instantly rising from the roiling water, clouds of it rising up toward the roof of the small building. And as the metal cooled in her glove, she said the words of her clan smiths, completing the creation.

sh'Shar: Forge of my people, maker of my destiny, the heat of my heart. ::She yanked the metal out of the tub and held it aloft.:: A fine blade. For a first try I guess.

A smirk grew over her tired face.

sh'Shar: Too bad about what's going to happen to it.

Laying the fine craftsmanship down on the anvil, Mikali slid the blade into the furnace and heated the metal back up again, but this time, she increased the bellows power. The metal glowed hot. Red, first, then yellow, then white. The metal grew close to sagging as the temperature climbed once more, fast. Too fast.

Out, and once more the blade went into the water, but only for a split second. Only enough to cool the outer layer of the metal, make it brittle, and then back to air. This time, instead of a creator's chant, her clan's warcry sprang forth from her lips.

sh'Shar: Kamii zan chi chai laaaAAA!

Mikali slapped the blade down onto the anvil and slammed the hammer down onto the softened, brittle, tortured metal.

A chip the size of a fingernail flew out, and cracks spiderwebbed out from the impact, permanently and irrevocably damaging the weapon. It was still sharp and wickedly edged, but now missing a tooth, it would never be perfect. It could cut, it could kill, but it would always be lesser. Inferior.

And so only now, chipped and missing a tooth, deliberately damaged, was the blade of the Ushaan-tor perfect.

Mikali let it cool, turning off the furnace and bellows and then eating a very late dinner. Or rather, early breakfast. She had worked well into the night without sleep.

Finishing was next. Wrapped leather around the handle, glue and wire, adding carvings along the hilt. A maker's mark, her own little design cut into the hilt of the weapon. Then the blade was sanded and polished, using a small electric device rather than by hand as was tradition, so this greatly sped up the work required.

Regardless it took hours. The first rays of the sun crept into her rented Palanon hut by the time she was finished, and exhaustion gnawed at her bones, but she was proud of her work. The weapon glinted in the sun, the chip sanded to safety but still clearly present, along with the damage from her single blow.

Then it was placed into the long box, the latch closed and sealed, the blade within safely secured and protected.

One done.

--

Lieutenant (j.g.) (ret) Mikali sh'Shar

Civilian

ReachOut Project

simmed by

Ensign Serren Tan

Security/Tactical

USS Gorkon

O238704AT0