Worst Impressions

[Tevit Ramastan]

It had been but a blink of an eye since Tevit had set his head upon his pillow than his alarm was blaring off the cold, unforgiving walls of his ship's interior. A yellow-furred paw reached out from the wad of sheets and blankets he lay under to grope and grasp about blindly until at last it found the offending device and clicked off its klaxon wail. Then there was silence, followed by a low, unhappy grumble from beneath the sheets. Head buried, but both his footpaws and his tail sticking out, Tevit lay upon his bed, his sole source of comfort in a world gone mad, and prayed he'd been dreaming about the alarm going off. Paw reaching up, he slowly pulled down the sheets from his face, baring his eyes just enough to see the clock.

5:40 AM. Time to get up.

The unhappy grumble gave an encore, followed by the pattering of his lips as he exhaled through them, letting them flap. How did his life go so very wrong? He had a great career path lined up, he was going to be making so much money and become a foreman within a year, and somehow he wound up on Ossus.

You have been worse places. His mind told itself. At least you have food, clean clothes, and your own bedroom here. And it's not even in a shipping container either.

Red eyes adjusted to the darkness, he at least took comfort in that. He'd moved beyond living amongst his tools in a crate to living amongst his tools in a starship. That was better than a crate, it had engines. That could break. And he could fix. With his tools. In his living quarters. That was a ship. Which was basically a crate with engines.

Snapping himself out of an endless loop, the Nehantite recalled his new duties, assigned only the day before, and he hauled himself out of bed. He had been assigned as liaison to the Cizerack build crew, and had also been given a great deal more authority around the Jedi camp, nearly to the level of the foreman. But with increased responsibility came endless amounts more work, and if the Ciz were going to trust him, he had to look trustworthy. Boxers going into the hamper by his cramped bathroom, Tevit stepped into his own private sonic shower and smacked the button to engage. Five minutes later he emerged, only to spend a further ten minutes brushing his fur until it was just so, and then selecting his cleanest workwear, even daring for a white shirt. Boots on, toolbelt on, one last brushing of his headfur, Tevit checked himself in the mirror before heading out into the darkness, a stack of datapads in one paw, and a meal bar in the other that he wolfed down for breakfast.

Ossus before sunrise was a sight to see. He knew the blueprints, he knew what it would look like, but as it stood, it hardly resembled the images in the mongoose's mind. Skeletons of larger structures rose, illuminated by safety lights, while what would become paved roads were speckled with light over their crushed gravel and packed earth surfaces. It would be brilliant, some day, and he would be able to say he helped make it so. But there was still much to be done, and his first point of order stood near the supply depot, barely visible in the dim, amber light of the sun which threatened to rise over the horizon. Droid mechanic. He reminded himself. Should be useful. Hardly enough droids around here. Love droids, they do what they're told, and they weld better than humans do, most of the time. Squinting as the sun breached the hills and blared down upon him, Tevit pushed on until he reached the door of the pod, finding it sealed up tight.

Three raps from his knuckles rang upon the door, then he waited. No response. Three more. No response. Growing impatient, Tevit drew the hydrospanner from his toolbelt and clanged it against the metal door, smirking as he could hear its ring echo within the metal chamber. If that didn't get the attention of the droids inside, nothing would.

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

Suriyesh Rajinaathra was in a beautiful place. It was the evening, and she was walking along the surf of a white, sandy beach by moonlight in a barely-there gown that fluttered in the warm breeze, alongside Kalman Shan (Sand Tiger of the West, Khamali Cops 2: Extreme Prejudice, and Romance on the River Kesh) in a sheer silk shirt that opened around his broad, chocolate-furred chest and perfect abs. He looked deeply into her eyes, parted his sculpted lips, and spoke those words that made her weak at the knees:

"Suriyesh, what do you think about Industrial Automaton's iterative positronic droid brain architecture?"

She wasn't sure how they had gotten to the beach, but there was a long trail of footprints in the wet sand behind them, and an inviting bungalow ahead of them, and as they exchanged sweet nothings about the finer points of artificial consciousness, she knew she didn't care. No sooner had she thought about it than they were in a bedroom full of silks and candles and scented oils, and she was in Kalman's arms, tilting her head back in rhapsody as he leaned his mouth toward hers--

BANG BANG BANG!

Suri started awake, tried to leap out of bed, and found herself tangled up in her bedsheets, sending her to the floor of her studio living quarters with a crash and a healthy mix of bilingual curses. The Munjan mongoose struggled to her feet, inserted her mechanical left arm, and found a grease-stained Vairaja University Engineering T-shirt to throw over her bra and shorts before shambling out into her shop. Rix, the only member of her family who stayed running through the night, gave an interrogative warble from his charging station as she passed.

"Frelling kumorr tassa piece of shaitaa rafaii j'kali mo kurrsh..."

She stooped, grabbed the bottom lip of the factory door, and heaved it open, sending it banging along its tracks. The blast of sunlight was too much for her to make out more than indistinct shapes, but she saw a yellow-and-white blur with a guilty-looking hydrospanner in its hand, and she squinted at it as fiercely as she could muster in her advanced state of hyperspace-lag.

"And what the hell kind of hour do you call this?"

[Tevit Ramastan]

It was not the sort of greeting Tevit had been expecting, on many levels. First off, there was a person on the other side of the door, not a droid as he'd guessed. Second, it wasn't just a person, it was a Nehantite. And third, she was female. And cranky.

Gathering his wits about him, the engineer dropped his hydrospanner back into the ring on his toolbelt from whence it came, and he cleared his throat. Though his eyes glanced down enough to see her shirt before he spoke, "Well, I'm not sure what you call it in Munjesh, but in Nehantish, and here on Ossus, we call it morning."

Wow, way to be a total dick! He kicked himself mentally. That wasn't how he meant to come across at all, and he knew it. In a quick attempt to salvage that greeting, he only managed to make things worse. "Do you work for the droid expert?"

In Tevit's defense, that tee shirt had been large, easily big enough to fit a man, and it appeared worn. Odds are the expert was this girl's father.

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

Nehantish? Oh for Garfife's sake. She knew they were part of the Alliance now, but she'd thought she was far enough from home she wouldn't have to have some dandy yellowfur looking over her shoulder. And he was quick to make assumptions, too. Typical.

She gave the tawny blur a withering look, then turned to shout over her shoulder: "Hey, Rix! We got a droid expert anywhere around here?"

R1-X1 twittered from somewhere back in the shop, and Suriyesh turned back to face the Nehantite. "Sorry, chief. It looks like you're stuck with me."

[Tevit Ramastan]

Wow, not even a minute and she already hates you. You're really, really good at that, you know?

Oh, shut up, it's too early to even think about stuff like that. And we don't even know her.

Tevit squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed them to quell the voices inside of him, getting them back under firm control as he'd learned to do so many years go. When he looked back at Suri, he examined her further, this time catching the glinting metal of her left arm.

Prosthetic. Remind you of anyone? His mind asked, and it was a question he preferred not to dwell on. Looking deeper into the pod, Tevit squinted, but there was too little light to see by for him to make much of anything out, and so his eyes returned to Suri's.

"Sorry, you just looked a bit young to be an expert. I... assumed incorrectly," he stated. "But, you were pretty accurate with the 'Chief' bit, there. Name's Tevit, Tevit Ramastan, and as of yesterday, I'm pretty much in charge of making sure the build goes smoothly, and according to schedule around here. I actually came by to take stock of your droids, and estimate capabilities before we get to work. Would you mind if I came inside, Miss...?"

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

Her eyes had adjusted enough now that she could size him up. Well dressed, well kept, pretty much what she'd expect from a Nehantite site manager. Probably a fourth-class citizen if he was this far offworld, which meant he had to be used to hard work. Maybe if the two of them backed up and started things fresh Suri could find a way to coexist without clamping her jaws on his throat.

"Rajinaathra," she said. "Suriyesh Rajinaathra, droid specialist, engineer, mechanic, you name it. Come on in, don't touch anything, and give me a moment to get some trousers on."

The brown-fur headed on back to her quarters and found a pair of work overalls that wasn't too dirty. Once she'd pulled them on and squeezed back into her work boots, she put on her army drab cap and headed back into the shop. She woke up Jeb, Zu, and Kaz as she passed their shelves and beckoned Rix out of the charger before she located Tevit near the entrance.

"All right, Mr. Ramastan, ready to meet the fam--woah!"

She stopped as if she'd heard a viper rustling through the parts bench. Tevit's eyes were red, really red. She put up her paws in front of her.

"Will you calm down? What the hell's your problem?"

[Tevit Ramastan]

The faint hum of lamps overhead warming and coming to life was a comforting one to Tevit, who had spent several years off and on in similar accommodation while on various ships of planetside workshops. All in all, the pod was impressive, and he found himself taking mental notes of just what all was available, and imagining what he could use it for to help with the build.

By the time Suri returned, he was already looking up lift capacities for the LBs he could make out in the back, but he lowered that datapad to better address his new team member.

Aaaand, then she freaked out. Quirking his brow, Tevit looked back over his shoulder to see if anyone else had entered, but there was no one there. Ears splayed in confusion, and tail swaying behind him, the yellow furred Nehantite asked, "What?"

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

"Well, something's got you riled up, 'cause you're seeing red, mate."

A sickening thought crossed her mind, and Suriyesh took another step back and sniffed the air for pheremones.

"You're not... in season, are you?"

[Tevit Ramastan]

It all made sense when she mentioned red, and Tevit rolled his offending eyes. However, when he opened his mouth to explain, he was caught off guard, and instead of words, he choked and sputtered before coughing and shaking his head vehemently.

"No! For Garfife's sake, I'm not in season!" he snapped. "Unlike the other Nehantite around here, I have my CC30 and self-control, thank you very much!"

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

"Okay, that's good to know," Suri replied, still staring at him circumspectly. "So what's with the eyes, then?"

[Tevit Ramastan]

Tevit's brow went back down, and he straightened his posture, though there was no denying the annoyance displayed in the flick of his tailtip.

"I was born this way. They're always like this," he said. "Nothing I can do about it, so don't read anything into it."

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

"Oh," Suri replied. "Well, that sucks."

She realized a moment later that sounded less sympathetic than insensitive. She grimaced and took a conciliatory step forward.

"I mean - I know how that is. I was born without a left arm. Nothing usable, anyway. I got my first prosthetic when I was five. And it was just a dummy, no moving parts, just made it less noticeable so people would stop asking nosy questions."

She knew as well as he did how hard it was being congenitally deformed on a world like Nehantish.

"Anyway, that's... not why you're here, sorry. The droids?"

[Tevit Ramastan]

"My cousin has a bionic prosthetic like yours," Tevit answered, willing to put off the subject of work for a moment. "Full left arm, and also shoulder. His is sub-dermal, though, so you'd never know it. Still, I had to fix it every now and then when he was too rough on it."

When Tevit saw the look that got from Suri, he hastened to explain, "He was born with a proper arm, but it got blown off in an explosion, so this was a replacement under the tissue the doctors could save."

His attention turned back to the droids, some of which he could see ambling about, and he couldn't help but grin as Kaz bonked Zu on the head. "Lively bunch," he chuckled. "But, yeah, I need to sort out the best use for your droids around the site. We've got some Cizeracks I don't want them getting in the way of."

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

Oh, she knew about subdermals, all right. They made them for cases like hers, too - grew the skin and fur in a lab and grafted it over the mechanics so you'd never know the difference. But it was outrageously expensive, which made Suri reconsider her estimate of Tevit's caste. Fourth? Had to be a second, or a very well-connected third.

Doesn't matter this far from home, she told herself. Anyway, you've got a job to do.

"I've already met the Cizeracks," she replied. "You're welcome to them. Now the droids--"

She felt little metal clamps tugging at her trouser legs and laughed to see Jeb peeking curiously around her legs at the stranger. "Come on, then, say hi. Hey, boys! Line up!"

The other two pit droids looked up from their scuffle and scurried over to join their brother in front of Tevit, knocking into one another like bowling pins. "This is Jeb, this is Zu, and this is Kaz," Suri said. "Yeah, like the old black-and-white holos. Pretty standard pit droids, trouble if they're bored, but give 'em a job to do and they're good as gold. Over here are the real workhorses..."

She moved toward the three-meter-tall blue-and-gold heavy construction droids in their charging racks, dwarfing everything else in the pod. "LB-series bulk loaders. They're old, but kilo for kilo they'll be the strongest machines on your site. Two of them lifted this whole pod yesterday, stores and all, carried it off the landing pad before Major Flattop started the next Civil War."

[Tevit Ramastan]

Tevit laughed at the pit droids' names, recalling a pair of hammers in his toolbox named Lawrence and Hadraaj, after another pair of old holovid comedians. He would have said something about it, but he could hear the pride in Suri's voice and knew not to interrupt until she was ready for him. It was a thoroughly complete shop she ran, and while an untrained eye might call it a mess, with parts everywhere, he knew every engineer had their own sorting system, and it was never wise to question the method of another in their own shop.

Following her back to the LBs, Tevit stared up at them, marveling that they still even worked. He'd read about them, yes, but never seen a working model, all having been replaced by newer technology before he was even born. "Major Flattop?" he asked, eyebrow quirking again. A look of realization washed over his face and he continued, "Nevermind, I know who you're talking about. Leave her to me and things'll be fine. On this site, I can actually tell her what to do, which is one hell of a luxury. Now, you said two of these lifted the pod, but I see three here. Is one not functional?"

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

"Ehh..."

Suriyesh grimaced and waved toward the droid in the middle. "Elbie-eight's the only one who doesn't have an all-original chassis, and you can't exactly get parts for these anymore. I machined replacements myself, but the materials just aren't the same quality, so his lift capacity is a little lower, and he's more prone to breaking down. Give him a lighter load and he'll hold up just fine, but I didn't want him shifting six hundred tonnes with his brothers."

A grease-stained astromech in the shape of an upright torpedo came scudding toward them with a cheerful whistle. "Over here's R1-X1, call him Rix. He's my primary technical assistant. That meat locker on legs behind you is Plunk, the power droid. He's retrofitted for twice the battery capacity of a standard GNK. And up on the wall is HV-SV7. Looks like a giant metal pizza, but he folds out into a flying forklift. Excellent for aerial construction."

She clapped her paws together, which made a strange, plasticky sound against her prosthetic paw. "And that's our happy little family. Any questions?"

Something small and metal clattered to the floor at the far end of the cargo container, down a narrow aisle between shelves stacked high with surplus scrap. Suri's cheery expression suddenly froze in place.

[Tevit Ramastan]

The yellow furred Nehantite drank it in, able to appreciate Suri's work and commitment to her droids more than the average layman could. He'd never been that good with droids, himself, always having a better connection to people when he had to work alongside them, but he'd fixed more than a few droids over the years, and Suri's task was no small one with what she had to work with. And, truth be told, she brought far more to the table than he had been expecting, so it would take longer to sort out a duty roster for her than he'd imagined.

"Heya, Rix," Tevit ticked his paw in a wave to the astromech. Of any droid type, those were the sort he was the most familiar with, having even had one of his own for a short while.

And then something fell. Something that shouldn't have fallen.

Though the shop around him appeared to be organized chaos, it was indeed organized, and no sparky worth their salt would place needed parts in a position to fall down on their own. Especially in their own shop. Leaning to the side to get a better look, he asked, "What's down there?"

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

The Munjan mongoose took a deep, bracing breath, then stepped past Tevit and hurried down the aisle. "Every family's got a problem child."

In the back corner of the cargo pod, carefully walled off by stacks of shipping crates and floor-to-ceiling shelving units, there was a chamber covered with antistatic rubber flooring and several complicated-looking articles of furniture shrouded in drop cloth. At the back of the chamber was another charging dock, and standing just outside the dock was a tall, slender droid with a large blue ocular lens set off-center in its insectoid face, and long, spidery limbs that branched halfway down into multiple manipulator attachments. It stooped to retrieve a pair of titanium forceps from the floor as Suriyesh entered - precisely as she entered, in fact, as if it had been waiting.

"Mistress Suriyesh. My apologies," it said politely. "It seems my extended period of deactivation has left me somewhat disoriented."

"I didn't activate you, Vox," Suri replied, folding her arms.

"Apology accepted, Mistress Suriyesh. Fortunately, I am programmed to self-activate at regular intervals to perform routine diagnostics of all essential functions. Otherwise I would be blissfully unaware that you have missed another two scheduled checkups."

"Look, I've got company," the mongoose said. "I don't have time for this right now. Will you go back to sleep, please?"

"My ethical subroutines dictate that I must decline. I cannot risk any further degradation of my motor acuity, especially as you are likely to need my services in the near future. But you need not be concerned. My restraining bolt is functioning to spec. I can neither leave this chamber nor discuss any confidential patient information without your express consent. I will resume my diagnostics until you return. Good day, Mistress Suriyesh."

Suri sighed and turned back up the aisle, only to find Tevit standing over her shoulder, just out of sight of the droid inside the chamber. "Guh! Don't sneak up on me like that, will you?"

[Tevit Ramastan]

Despite his heavy boots, Tevit had followed with soft step. Tail brushy with curiosity, he had to know what was back there, both as a director of work on the site, and as an intensely curious species. What he found raised only more questions.

"Restraining bolt?" he asked, unapologetic for having eavesdropped. "Should I even ask what you have back here?"

Unwilling - and unable - to wait, the Nehantite leaned around her for a better look, then paused. He recognized one of those pieces of furniture, despite its covering. He knew exactly what it was. Leaning back, his face was cold as he looked down on Suri. "Tell me you're the only one who goes back there."

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

Suri beat back a surge of panic at the accusatory look on Tevit's face, and she backpedaled out of instinct - grabbed a hold of a shelf to make sure she didn't accidentally step into Vox's domain. "Well, yes," she stammered, trying to divine what Tevit knew, or thought he knew. "I-- I am. That's why he's got a restraining bolt, he's not exactly..."

Legal.

"...safe. But he's under control."

The yellow-fur clearly wasn't satisfied with that lack-of-explanation, and she swallowed to calm herself and collect her rattled thoughts. "Vox is a medical droid," she said. "I keep him to look after my cybernetics. The mechanicals are easy, I maintain the prosthetic myself. It's the bioconnections that are trickier for me. That's all he does. He doesn't see anyone else."

She clung tightly to the shelf, praying he wouldn't barge through her for a closer look.

[Tevit Ramastan]

"Then why isn't he 'safe'?" Tevit asked. Craning his neck for a better look, the Nehantite still couldn't see Vox himself, but he got a better look at the room, and the seat he was so nervous about.

"Besides, if he's malfunctioning, I can probably reprogram him so he's back to normal. Our medical staff here is extremely short-handed, and with more people showing up on site, I should catalog his capabilities so we can make him available to others. You'd get a bigger stipend out of it," he then said, finally backing off.

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

"But he's not malfunctioning, he's programmed to be that way," Suri said, growing desperate. "He's a cybernetics expert. Only he seems to think every problem can be solved with cybernetics. Including problems that haven't happened yet, or might happen. Look, you don't want him turned loose on the hospital here, but if he's reprogrammed, he'll lose the expertise I need."

She forced herself to lock on to his angry-looking red eyes, beat away that instinctive response that told her he was about to jump for her throat or at least fire her on the spot, because red eyes were normal for him, she told herself, and he was going to be understanding about this - he had to be.

"Please," she said. "I just... I need him as he is. Get in a 2-1B, or even a GH-7, and I'll have it ready for the medical staff in a couple of days, but Vox has to stay here."

[Tevit Ramastan]

Tevit fought against his better judgment, judgment formed by experiences with someone else with a cybernetic arm, someone else with a chair like the one in that room. Bad experiences. His tail flicked, anger coursing through his veins, though it was not anger at Suri.

She's telling you the truth. He told himself. Maybe not all of it, but most of it.

In the end, he swallowed back what he wanted to say, and instead asked, "That chair, then. That's only for when he works on your arm? And that's all he does? You don't have him inject you with any... illegal substances. Or venom?"

You've given away too much; she's sure to ask, now. You're a fool, Tevit Ramastan.

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

Suriyesh had started desperate, but she was rapidly migrating toward confused. Illegal drugs? Venom?

"What? No! I've never touched any of that stuff! Gods, with a cybernetic implant, you think I want to screw up my central nervous system any more than it already is?"

Something had changed in Tevit's face, too, and now Suri felt her curiosity welling up, morbid though it was. "Um... why... why do you ask?"

[Tevit Ramastan]

Without thinking, Tevit's right paw moved over to hold his left forearm near the elbow, rubbing it lightly before he turned and headed back out of the narrow walkway and back into the pod. His tail swung in even strokes, each culminating in a frustrated tick of its tip but he said nothing.

You are such a fool. Why did you say that? You could have just run a blood test on her; you've got the right to do that for a drug test. She is one of your employees, after all, technically.

It wouldn't be right. His heart replied to his head.

He could hear Suriyesh coming after him, and so he paused, leaning on a bin of spare parts. "Because I knew someone who did," he answered. "And I wasn't sure if that was common among people with cybernetics."

She's not him. No one could be him. Stop treating her like she's like him.

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

"Oh."

That little monosyllable implied a great deal of understanding and closure that simply wasn't there. All Suriyesh really understood was that she'd just peeled back the edges of some deep and personal source of pain in Tevit's life. But that was enough. Everyone had their own private misery, and there was nothing to be gained by stirring it up unprovoked. And if Tevit was preoccupied with his own demons, perhaps he wouldn't inquire too deeply into hers.

"Well... if there's a sensory mismatch, you can get phantom pain, or a stimulus overload," she murmured. "I could see why you might self-medicate. I mean, I take my arm out most nights just to take the edge off, but I never... You know, I manage."

She gripped her cybernetic arm with her good paw and tried not to imagine too hard what was going through the yellowfur's head.

[Tevit Ramastan]

Millions of thoughts ran through Tevit's head as he returned to the main bay of the storage pod. Memories of his cousin he wished would have remained buried rushed back to the surface, and he had to stop, gripping the edge of a bin while he closed his eyes and forced himself to calm down. When he did at last turn back to Suriyesh, he took a deep breath, the sighed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to imply anything, I just..." he paused, biting his tongue. "I should be going now. I can call in a report of what droids we might need out at the survey site, if you're on the network now. If not, just see the quartermaster and he'll get you set up."

The yellow-furred Nehantite was clearly frazzled, far from his normally composed self, and he kept his eyes on anything but Suri. "Listen, I really spent too much time here. It was nice meeting you, and I'm sure we'll get to talk more later, but I've got to get the survey site set up before the Cizerack get there," he said. "I'll, uh, yeah, I'll get you the duty roster for your droids once I have a better idea of what we'll need. Thanks."