"Everything showed as green," I told Harry Kim as he took the PADD I held out to him between a pair of claws, "But be careful out there, Ensign."
He nodded, "We will be, sir," he agreed and then walked over to join the rest of the away team by Shuttle One. They were heading down to one of the barely formed planets to investigate a dilithium deposit.
If we could pick up some extra crystals while we could, that would be great. They didn't exactly grow on trees and this was exactly the right environment to find some. They mainly formed in neutron star collisions, or rather the aftermath of them.
Early on in a star system's development there tended to be a bunch floating around, fairly easily accessible.
Well, comparably at least.
So we were sending an away team down to check that sensor contact. Hopefully Lieutenant Paris, Ensign Kim and Crewman Winters will be able to bring some back. And without scratching my damn shuttle.
And hopefully without Paris fucking something up and getting them all killed.
I snorted and turned away, heading for the exit. It was a mistake giving him an important posting, good pilot or not. But, not my decision, that was up to the Captain.
Our brand new, used to be science officer, captain.
Still, I couldn't really argue with the results. So far, she's done a pretty good job. So had Commander Tuvok for that matter, but the Vulcan was something like a hundred years old, so not like he was inexperienced. He just wasn't in Starfleet for some of it.
He even spent some time teaching at the academy at some point before I was there.
Archery for the survival courses out of all things, but still technically a teaching spot. Now that was a weapon I would never be able to use, bow and arrow. Which is kinda sad, I bet I could fire a real big and strong one, they were mostly limited by how weak humans were after all.
How would that even work, maybe I could design something that would work? Just as a challenge, it would hardly be practical. How would I even hold it? In my mouth likely, but how would I then pu-
I stopped by the corner a second before crewman Jamesson rounded it,
"Oh, sorry sir," she said, quickly dancing aside before she ran into me, long limbs flailing. She was tall for a human woman, tall and thin and wore her light brown hair in a kind of... I could only describe her chosen hairstyle as a poof. She was assigned to engineering, delta shift.
"No worries, crewman," I said, "But please be careful, it may be a bit more damaging running into me than the average person you meet."
She nodded, large hair wobbling, "Yeah, no kidding, sir. You look like you could lift a shuttlecraft."
"I'm more meaning my hard scales and high mass, it would be closer to colliding with a low speed ground vehicle than a person," I pointed out, "And I haven't lifted a shuttlecraft yet. Well, not really anyway."
Her eyebrows went up, "Not yet?"
I chuckled, "I may have slid one along the deck once or twice when I needed to shift it a bit rather than enter and use the controls."
"Wait, really? Even a small shuttle weighs tons!"
"It was pretty heavy," I admitted, "And it wasn't more than maybe ten centimeters."
It was also more putting my weight against it and pushing than outright lifting.
"That's... actually pretty impressive."
"Thank you. So please be careful."
"I will, sorry sir!" she said with a smile and moved to the side before heading past, big hair swaying like some kind of sea plant. I looked after her for a moment. I had no idea how she lived with that thing, it had to be getting in the way.
I knew for a fact that she spent most of her shifts in Jefferies tubes.
Finally I shook my head and headed towards engineering.
Lieutenant Carey looked up from a console when I entered, "Chief, we're about halfway done with those two drones."
I nodded as I moved up to him, "Any issues?"
"Not specifically," he admitted, shaking his head, "I'm a bit unsure about the looks."
I tilted my head, "What about it?"
"They look..." he started and then frowned, "...you're aware of the uncanny valley, right?"
Oh for...
I sighed, "Too human? Too not human?" I asked, "I thought I had it right."
I had based the design on what I remembered from that Will Smith movie, figuring it was good enough. It worked for people watching in any case.
Uncanny valley, why do humans even have that feature?
Carey shook his head, "Not sure, but they are something."
"Damn it," I grumbled, "Fine, what do you think will help the most? Full fake skin like a Soong android or just clearly non-human faceplate?
"Getting above the valley is a lot harder than beneath it," Carey admitted, "I think you had it right with Huginn and Muninn."
They were sculpted in a non-human somewhat draconoid shape.
I nodded, "Alright, let's try with a blank faceplate like a helmet. Structurally there is no real difference, just slight adjustment in sensor positions. Mainly to accommodate a third image sensor."
"Why a third?"
"Binocular vision is good, trinocular vision is better. Especially for depth perception and such," I said and shifted my wings in a slight shrug, "And does not take any more to implement. And with them not needing to be visible for aesthetics, much easier to implement."
Honestly, the only reason Huginn and Muninn are even bipeds is because Federation ships, stations and facilities were made for bipeds. Quadrupedal designs are clearly superior and much more stable to boot.
Maybe time for a redesign, they only really needed to be able to switch between normal mode and bipedal mode.
Maybe I could even give them a proper draconoid form too.
Sure, I'll put that on my 'to do' list behind everything else.
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