Hoverboard Horrors

Posted on Mon Oct 8th, 2018 @ 9:40am by Ensign Mark Cross

Mission: Negotiations and Apothecaries
Location: Mark Cross' Quarters - USS Wolff
Timeline: En Route to Mediation

“So whatcha workin’ on?”

Ensign Devinee O’Reilly lay across on the opposite bunk, her legs swinging easily behind her. The curly red locks that framed her face were being as annoying as usual, no matter how many times she brushed them away, they wouldn’t cooperate.

Before we begin, let’s get some background to probably the most awkward social situation currently playing out on board the USS Wolff. Despite often being seen together, Mark and Devinee aren’t dating. Instead, she’s dating his roommate, a Medical officer who, from what he’d gathered so far, was a distant descendant of nobility on his home world. Despite the privileged upbringing, to his credit the guy acted like just another Starfleet officer, but Mark came from a much more “ordinary” bloodline, where he and his parents had all become Starfleet officers on a mix of merit and serious hard work. You would expect that the pair wouldn’t get on, but as they both played instruments, they’d found common ground in music and had developed a strong, but so far not close friendship.

Devinee played viola, which is where she met said roommate, and before long they’d begun to date. She and Mark became introduced by association, and from then on, she begun hanging around a lot more often, with whichever one happened to be in the mess hall or off-shift at the time. She had a bubbly personality, was perfectly likeable, but she didn’t really have any other friends for reasons unknown to Mark, and he didn’t think it was for lack of trying. Maybe it was her strong Irish accent that made her hard to understand.

Mark’s parents were both born and raised in England. He had the accent to go with it, and had also developed a certain affinity for those of the country’s near neighbours of Scotland, Ireland, and to a lesser extent that of Wales from his trips home. Devinee was in the Science department, so her curiosity for how things worked in a physical sense aligned perfectly with his love of taking things apart. She liked to watch him work, and as a result they ended up spending far more time together than he felt comfortable with.

It didn’t help that he had a weakness for redheads. And Irish accents tended to make his knees wobble.

Both he and his roommate let the friendship continue without a word to the girl, or to each other. Maybe it was a mutual trust, a “bro code” of sorts, and while they almost definitely both felt a little unease, it was pretty minor all-in-all and never created issues. Mark just knew that if Devinee were to go away, or if he were to find a partner of his own and was suddenly much less available to hang out with, the situation would get just a touch more comfortable.

“An old hoverboard” Mark replied, his head not looking up from the final thruster since he was in the final throws of stripping down, cleaning, and reassembling.

“Don’t they give those away for free on Risa?” Devinee asked, instantly finding it a pointless exercise and beginning to lose interest.

“Not one of these…this is a much older design from Earth, much less advanced, more moving parts…” More things to go wrong, he didn’t add. Mark swivelled from his spot on the floor to face the fellow Ensign’s bunk, pointing out the components as he goes. “Two thrusters for the lift, four smaller jets for manoeuvring…gyro sensors, here, here, here, and here, under the footboard. They detect the movements of the rider, send the signals to the control unit, which fires the jets for a set time to make the adjustment. From what I gather it handles more like a snowboard than a skateboard.”

Mark held the board proudly aloft. From the scuffs and scratches, it was clear that it had been used, appreciated, and on more than one occasion probably abused by the previous owner. The gyro sensors would be hidden from view when he replaced the footboard, but for the most part the ‘inner workings’ were hanging on the outside in plain sight, giving it a real cyberpunk vibe.

“Not gonna break your neck on that thing are ye?” Devinee asked, eying it warily. “Don’t wanna carry your sorry arse down to Sickbay today I swear”

Mark grabbed up the footboard from his ever-reducing pile of parts that were strewn across the floor, beginning to screw it back into place. Further adjustment and calibration would probably be required somewhere along the line, but he could get at that from the bottom of the board now. Plus, It was ready to test. The control was relatively simple, a single red button. The rest was down to the skill, or lack thereof, of the rider.

“Only one way to find out…” he remarked, pressing the button. The board spluttered to life, lifting a short distance away from the deck. While it didn’t sound particularly safe, it hovered dead parallel to the ground, and that was good enough for him.

Pushing himself up to standing, Mark gingerly surveyed the board for a few seconds longer before jumping on two-footed with conviction, the board initially struggling to adjust to the weight before again coming to rest in a steady position. Mark loved to hit the ski slopes with some of his holodeck time, and while this was his first hoverboard experience, he had at least some confidence in his own balance.

Slowly and steadily he rocked the board towards the nose, propelling him forward. Reversing the motion brought him back. Next, he shifted his weight into his back leg, allowing the front foot to guide the board to steer side to side.

“Well Mark, I’m impressed. Not gonna ride it myself though mind…”

“That’s a shame! Even you couldn’t be late for your shift if you rode one of these down the corri…whoa…”

The Engineer’s words stopped in their tracks as the board started to feel a whole lot less responsive. That was shortly followed by a muted bang from one of the smaller jets as it backfired, melting some useful wiring in the process and decommissioning itself. The control unit, trying to be clever, began firing the other jets to counteract, causing the board to rock with increasing violence.

“W-whoa—whoaaaa…” Mark realised almost immediately that the “self-righting mechanism” built into the control system would override any manual corrections he would try to make, rather than the other way around. For better or worse, he was in for the ride, and his arms began to move in a rapid windmill motion as he tried to stay on for dear life.

“Just get off!”

“Great idea geni…” Mark was cut off by another unexpected move from the board, trying to use a burst from the hover thruster to ‘power out’ of the shake. It shot straight upward, higher into the air, finally forcing the rider’s feet loose. The Engineer, who spent more time in the gym than a lot of the security detail, came thundering down to the deck with a thud in a less than graceful manner. To add insult to injury, the board lowered back down to hover peacefully alongside where he had fallen.

“Aww, he’s come back to make sure you’re OK!” chuckled Ensign O’Reilly, who was now on her feet and slowly golf-clapping the show. “I’d love to help you clean up, but my shift’s about to start…”

“Ugh…” Mark grunted, the wind knocked clean out of him by the fall. “Have fun…see you later…” he tried to sit up, the pain pushing him back to where he lay. “I’m just gonna stay here a minute, get my breath back, make sure nothing’s bro…”

Hearing the door hiss open and then closed, a moment later, he realised his not-very-sympathetic audience was gone.

“Who needs enemies huh? Wow…that really hurt…”