After waking up from the sedation of having the neural link installed I found out there had been some kind of emergency. Apparently we have under attack by Viidians while the ship being in the same place as a quantum copy of the ship.
Well, that's a opportunity that could have been used better.
Getting the Doctor to agree with even this installation wasn't exactly easy. I spent weeks doing research with the help of the computer. That thing is damn helpful. Its like Google mixed with wikipedia and a really helpful teacher all mixed into one.
There are such a thing as external memory storage, its sometimes used by the binars. The Doctor vetoed it as to dangerous. I did research into mechadendrite style extra limbs and he vetoed it on the basis that it would be a pretty damn major operation due to ribs not exactly being loadbearing in that way and as such my entire chest cavity would need to be reenforced to handle the load.
In the end we came to a compromise. There would be a link to my central nervous system installed in my head and a hardline drawn down along my spine to connections on my back. He wanted a wireless connection to don't need to have a connection through the skin, but I vetoed that for security reasons.
The mechadendrites are part of a harness style setup, connecting to the contacts halfway down my spine.
The neural link is of the shelf, usually used to replace lost limbs but the Doctor insisted it would work for this as well.
The design for the mechadendrite setup was more...complex as it's not exactly standard. I have B'Elanna involved by the use of old fashioned bribery.
Cost me two months of my personal holodeck time as well as a month of replicator rations but in the end the design was finished. It ended up harness with a flexible backplate.
Wearing it I can still move normally and it's quite flat on my back. It can be work beneath normal clothes without really showing.
The mechadendrites themselves are attached to it at level with the end of my ribs. The mechadendrite are quite nice. Classic tentacle design, 4 cm wide at the base narrowing to 3 at the end, able to retract back to 30 cm range and stretch up to two meters each.
The end have four fingers a quarter the way around a circle and the tip of each 'finger' have four tweezer like manipulators for really fine details. In the middle between the four main fingers there are optical sensors of the same kind that was used in Laforge's visor.
It's powered by three powercells, each one enough to run it for a week of usage. Once one start getting low I switch to the next one and remove the empty one, setting it to charge of the ships powergrid.
The entire setup weight about five kilograms.
All in all it cost me an additional month and a half of replicator rations for the materials and two weeks of build time with B'Elanna. I'm just glad I already had a bunch saved up...I only used the replicator for tea and clothes before, eating almost all meals in the messhall.
Frowning I try and control the right one to pick up a apple on the table. I have had them for two weeks now and they just wont cooperate. The Doctor insist that everything is working correctly and that its my brain that need to adapt to the additional limbs.
Took two days before I even started getting visual data from the sensors and that was more than a bit confusing. Took me a week to figure out what the hell it even meant and not getting a headache.
My control is...lacking to say the least. A few days ago I started to get feeling in them from the surface sensors covering them but I still cant move them like I want. At least I have been able to stop them from twitching all over the place and to not hang straight down.
Slowly the mechadendrite raise above my shoulder as I keep my eyes closed, focusing on the visual data I get from them as I try to reach and grab the apple. Instead I manage to smack myself on the side of my head.
Groaning I rub the spot and give the artificial limb a small glare. At least they are not that strong, maximum lifting capacity is about twenty kilos.
Giving it up for now I force them to go back to the 'stand by' position i'm training myself to put them in, the 'hands' hovering above my shoulders. I have a shift in engineering.
My uniform is the normal black but with grey shoulders indicating I'm a cadet or trainee. The logic for putting me in engineering was my interest in technology and used the same logic that say that if Kes can hand the Doctor tools in sickbay I can hold tools for the people in engineering.
So hold tools I do even if I also learn a ton. B'Elanna enjoy it way to much I think...anytime I'm not tasked for something else she put me on scrubbing plasma manifolds.
The sodding things have never been so clean.
I really need to take up the lack of pockets with somebody in charge. What the hell is up with that anyway? Actually, thats not the only thing I need to bring up.
Frowning I pick up the PAD from the table as I walk past on my way out into the corridor, starting to take notes on my way to engineering.
These people need a injection of common sense.