Delta Quadrant
Seven simply raised an eyebrow at the schematics that they had created for the "Delta Flyer". Sure, Lieutenant Paris had pretended like they - He, Torres and herself - hadn't already near-finalised the design, presumably because he wanted them to be known for having designed and built the Flyer inside a week, but in actuality, he and Torres had been toying with the design since before she came aboard Voyager, and as an exercise in getting herself and the Half-klingon Chief Engineer to 'be friends', had included Seven on the basis that her expertise with borg technology would likely come in handy. And while true, it did not do much to lessen the hostility between herself and Lieutenant Torres.
"I do not understand."
She looked up at Tom. They had already built the Delta Flyer, that was weeks ago.
"Huh? Oh... wrong padd." He swapped the one in her hand with another. It was an EVA suit... though it looked a little, bulkier, than the ones they had aboard. "Uh... look at the... additions."
She did, and was intrigued. She demonstrated that she found it interesting with a raised an eyebrow.
"Now, we've got all kinds of really small pieces of technology, but they're individual units. And... the many things we get into got me thinking... 'we need body armor that can withstand phasers, disruptors, and other kinds of energy weapons... or ballistic." He shuddered a little at the memories he now carried from the time the ship was held by the Hirogen. even holographically-generated bullets could kill with the computer-controlled safeties turned off. Then B'ellana was... uh... anyway. Made me wonder. So I started looking into the archives and, well... I came up with this. I was wondering what your thoughts were."
"Have you approached the Lieutenant with this?" She asked as she scrolled through the 'wishlist'.
"B'Ellanna doesn't see the point - we've got shuttles. And the Flyer too, now."
She looked back up. "I see how this could be used in place or, or perhaps in addition to the, Flyer."
"So, you'll..."
She decided to give a slight smile and a nod. Idly, as she gave thought to its construction, she also wondered about the new feeling in her gut... one of ... 'excitement'?
-
She stepped forward into the centre of the indicated circle, and the holographic machinery in the holodeck began to affix the very-real pieces to the undersuit she wore. A two-piece chest piece was first, then followed with the arm pieces, and then the 'robot arms' lifted her up whilst the leg pieces were affixed, and intermediate flexible sections bolted in. And finally, the helmet.
For a moment, she saw nothing but darkness, before the internal holographic "heads up display" came to life, allowing her to 'see' her surroundings with a wider field of view than her own eyes. The onboard computer also provided odd overlays highlighting objects as it began the odd startup sequence, before the suit came online... and she felt like she wasn't even wearing it, the weight suddenly gone.
"How's it feel?" Tom asked from the control panel.
"... It does not." She spoke, and noticed a small speaker icon in green near the bottom of the holographic HUD. It was... strange. the internal holographic display made it seem like she was not wearing a helmet, even though the inside surface was at the nearest a mere centimetre from her face.
"... Alright, Flexibility tests. Lets see how far you can move..."
Feeling like she was playing a tutorial level from one of the Lieutenants twentieth century-inspired video games - and, if she recalled correctly, that probably had an influence in both the design and desire for the suit - she moved her head as much as she could slowly, so to 'feel' what the suit was limiting her motions to. Left, right, up, down, tilted whilst those, etcetera. It was... quite restrictive actually. The holographic display also indicated how much motion she was performing before reaching the physical boundaries.
"Alright... We can adjust the sensors to turn the 'view' farther,... if you want?"
"... I would be able to look directly behind myself?" She questioned, understanding.
"Yes. Return your head to, uh... straight ahead. Making the marker for eye-tracking."
And so it went for half an hour, moving on from the lead, to arms, finding the true limits. The suit would stop her from reaching behind her back, bending down properly to pick up a heavy object in the proper manner, and other restrictions, but they had anticipated such things when it came to choosing what technology to include.
Why she was wearing it though, instead of the Lieutenant, she didn't know, though she suspected, based what happened during a trip through a nebula just mere months ago, that he wasn't actually wanting to wear it so much as just make one and she was a good candidate for configuring the suit to be useable and useful.
The Mobility tests - how well she could move with it, wasn't just in regards to walking, but running, jumping and more. Some tests however, would have to wait given they were using a holodeck.
"Alright. Sensor systems test. As per your suggestion, some of the objects in this room are real, rather than holographic, transported in before you arrived. Begin phase one."
And as their time-limit was reached, Seven was rather, happy, with the suit. The sensors were essentialy the halfway step between a tricorder and the systems on a specialised shuttle - slightly beyond some of their shuttles, though nowhere near the capability of the Delta Flyer... however, proximity made up that shortfall, as the Delta Flyer would not be able to enter a cave a person could (only just) fit into... Not only that, but the life support system whilst incredibly compact, used a miniaturised replicator system as a backup to enable very long periods of EVA - both in space and in hostile atmospheric conditions.
As for the flight capabilities... she was nervous with those tests, though oddly excited.
Their next session for the suit would be about testing the defensive and offensive measures, which would take place in 'her' cargo bay. But that was for tomorrow.
-
Seven was almost nervous as the Captain read through the reports she and the Lieutenant had prepared. The captain was muttering to herself, and seven was sure that at one point the captain had said "... Is this for real?" Though low enough that she knew she was nto meant to hear, so didn't respond.
"Three separate shielding systems, each with redundant generators?"
"Regenerative Shielding during normal use. The Multi-adaptive shielding can be used to essentially cloak the wearer from sensors, though not from eye.... and Multi-spatial field generators for... extreme cases. The power systems that we could fit are insufficient to run those for long, however."
The captain took a big sip from her coffee, then returned to reading. "Ablative-dispersion lattice armor, four phaser emitter arrays... nano-torpedo laun..." She looked up again. "Torpedoes, Seven?"
"... those are only in an add-on pack that fits to the back torso section... for use in flight."
She blinked "Flight?" Then continued reading... "Inertia Dampeners, the armor has its own S.I.F. and... micro-impulse drives?" The Captain took another big sip, this time not even tearing her eyes from the list."This... sounds like one of Tom's Fantasy projects..." she muttered.
"The Lieutenant did approach me with this project, yes."
"Figures." Seven knew when she got to the next part. "... WARP DRIVE?!" She looked up. "Seven, I know we can miniaturise technology quite a bit but...
"Again, only through an, 'add-on' pack. Basic atmospheric flight up to, ah, Mach 3, whilst without the micro-impulse add-on drive, even our cargo shuttles could out-pace at sublight speeds... we have designed additional add-on pieces to give greater capabilities in special circumstances. A functional warp drive capability is with the largest of the, add-on units."
"How long would it take to fabricate a prototype?"
Seven knew that if she had regular human feelings and was, like a regular human, just as expressive, she would have been smiling, but as it was it barely showed that she was feeling somewhat amused. "The base suit has already been completed and basic tests performed, but we have yet to test the, space flight capabilities. However the Add-on units are currently in design phase. As for additional suits... each one takes Approximately three days to fabricate and assemble."
"What about the combat capability?"
Seven rubbed her left arm slightly, still feeling sore. "Passed with, as Mr Paris put it, 'flying colors'."
"... Then what happened to your arm?"
"I... Misjudged how much impact force would actually transfer from one particular test. The inertia Dampeners and SIF were beyond our projections... and I leant into the hit too far."
The Captain chuckled at that... then paused, "You wore it for live-fire?"
"... Only after the first ten tests were performed with the suit controlled remotely."
".... Remotely?"
