No Scratches

The message from Mei-Lin came through at 1340.

*Your suit is ready. Engineering bay. Come get it before I change the shoulder geometry on you.*

Cormus read it twice and put his coffee down and went.

She had it laid out on the work surface when he arrived, the components separated and arranged in the order they were meant to go on which told him something about how she thought about things. Not a pile of finished pieces but a sequence, a logic to it that made the assembly process self explanatory if you paid attention.

He paid attention.

"Light configuration for flight ops, medium for everything else," Mei-Lin said from the other side of the bay where she was running a diagnostic on something that was making a sound he did not recognize. "The shoulder assembly is profiled for seated operation. I ran the dimensional specs against the helm console measurements on both the Dutchman and the runabout and built in a full range of motion clearance for both."

Cormus picked up the shoulder piece and turned it over in his hands. It was lighter than he expected. The articulation points were clean and the material had a quality to it that did not feel like something that had come off a standard production line.

"You built this from scratch," he said.

"The fabricator built it," she said. "I designed it."

"There's a difference?"

She looked at him over her shoulder. "Yes."

He set the shoulder piece down and picked up the helmet. The visor was clear and the sensor suite housing was integrated into the structure rather than attached to it, which he could see immediately was better than the add on approach most personal suits used. He turned it in his hands and found the comms collar adjustment that he had raised in the meeting and it was there, built in, the booster housing sitting flush against the interior of the collar where it would not interfere with anything.

"You added the comms booster" Cormus said, not expecting it.

"It was a good idea" Mei added. "So I made sure it was part of your setup."

He set the helmet down and looked at the full layout on the work surface and thought about the last suit he had worn on an actual job, a generic medium configuration he had borrowed from a supply depot on Bajor that had fit well enough and protected adequately and had never felt like it was built for anyone specifically.

This felt like it was built for him specifically.

"How do I put it on?" he said.

"Start with the base layer," she said, and came around from the other side of the bay and walked him through it with the efficient patience of someone who had done this before and was not going to make him feel slow for not knowing the sequence. She checked the fit at the shoulder and at the hip and made one adjustment to the left forearm attachment that she had suspected she would need to make and had already pre-cut the material for, which meant she had been thinking about his specific proportions before he arrived.

When it was fully assembled she stepped back and looked at it with the critical eye of someone checking their own work rather than showing off someone else's.

"Move your arms through the full range," she said. "Both directions. Then reach forward like you're at the helm."

He did. The shoulder assembly moved with him in a way that standard suits did not, no catch at the top of the reach, no resistance at the lateral extension. He reached forward the way he reached for the helm controls and his full range was there, nothing blocked, nothing restricted.

"It works," he said, and it came out with more genuine surprise than he intended.

Mei-Lin's expression did something that was not quite a smile but was adjacent to one. "It's supposed to work," she said. "That was the point."

He looked at her for a moment. "Seriously Mei-Lin. This is good work."

Cormus started taking the suit off in the reverse order she had shown him and she went back to whatever she had been running diagnostics on and the engineering bay was quiet except for the hum of the ship and the low sound of the diagnostic tool and the particular satisfaction of something having been made well and used correctly for the first time.

"When does Zedd get his?" Cormus asked.

"Tomorrow," she said. "I'm making some modifications to his configuration."

He glanced at her but her back was to him and her focus was entirely on the diagnostic and her expression was not available for reading. "What kind of modifications?"

"The kind that are none of your business," she said pleasantly.

He grinned at the back of her head and finished packing the suit into the case she had left out for it and picked it up and headed for the door. "Thanks Mei-Lin."

"Don't scratch it," she said, without turning around.

He laughed and took it with him and she listened to his footsteps down the corridor and the satisfied sound of someone who had just been given something built specifically for them and went back to her diagnostic and did not think about the modifications she was making to Zedd's configuration any more than was strictly necessary to finish them correctly.

Which was quite a lot actually.

But that was between her and the fabricator.