Let's suit up!

Posted on Wed Dec 3, 2014 @ 2:16am by Lieutenant Penelope Naroot

2,939 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: All this has happened before...
Location: Holodeck
Timeline: 1645 hours

Penny was sitting on the beach watching the waves come in, wearing a form-fitting two-piece and her hair braided up. She thought the waves looked a bit too predictable, but it was the best the holodeck could do. She knew the oceans on Earth could be predicted based on currents, air movement and land formation, but she'd never gone out of her way to calculate it, preferring to be surprised. It wasn't a feeling she got to experience too often, so she had learned to cherish it, as she did any uncalculated feeling.

Her board was standing in the sand next to her, ready to be used, but Thomas hadn't shown yet, so she was using the time to plan a few maneuvers for the helm.

The sound of the holodeck opening finally caught her attention and she stood and turned, spying Thomas at the edge of the beach. She waved and beckoned him over.

Thomas smiled, feeling the warm heat from the sun -- well, the computer-generated heat and light. Over the years, he became well-versed with holotechnology as much of it had been extended from transporter use. Micro-forcefields, replicated props and even small tractors played integrated roles with the thousands of projectors now hidden behind sand, water and sky. Looking around the beach, he spotted Penny. Though she seemed twenty yards away, he figured she was only a few feet in front of him. Surely the ocean was even just a graphic projection, at least until they stepped into the water.

He couldn't help but to keep thinking about how the holodeck would create the sensation of surfing or swimming in the water, especially since the holodeck floor was even with that of the corridor. Seriously, how was that not ever considered a design flaw?

"Good afternoon!" he said cheerful to Penny now that she was in hearing range. "Lovely weather for being in dock, isn't it?"

Penny giggled and gave him a grin. "Aloha`auinala! E komo mai to Ala Moana Bowls!" She grinned at the look on his face. "Welcome to Ala Moana Bowls," she said, "one of the many jewels of Oahu." She pointed to her left at a pair of boards. "Blue one's yours," she said, pointing to a ten-foot long board. "Green one's mine. They're waxed and ready to go." She walked over to the boards and picked her shorter one up. "Ready for your first lesson?"

Thomas took note of how she picked up her board. He picked his up in a similar manner. "Let's do it!" he said with a smile.

Penny showed him how to paddle, how to lie on his board, and how to jump up and start riding. After he'd seemed to get the hang of it (and she had exhausted the number of ways she could giggle without sounding impolite) they jumped into the water.

"Okay," she called out as she paddled out ahead of him, "surfing in 3 easy steps. One: Paddle the wave. Two: Ride it. Three: Don't drown." She suddenly put on a burst of speed and curled around, paddling along with a wave and jumped up on her board as it began to curl around her. She kept her hips moving, balancing herself as she sped down the curl before the wave finally broke and collapsed, sending her into the water.

She bobbed back up, shaking the water out of her hair and got back onto her board, swimming over to him. "Ready to give it a go?"

Thomas smiled, having carefully watched Penny as she handled the wave. He pushed forward, leaving Penny behind to watch. As the wave came, he did as he observed, finally rising out of the water and balancing on the board, all the while choosing not to think about how the holodeck would simulate the wave. Instead, he would focus on having fun.

He shifted his weight often, balancing his body at every changing moment.

Water enveloped him as he separated from the board. Gazing at the bottom of his board as the wave continued to push it forward, Thomas began to kick and propel himself upward to the surface. He gasped once his lungs found air, realizing for the first time that the wind had been knocked out of him.

"Not bad for a collection of photons, eh?" Penny said, grabbing him by the armpit and hauling him back onto his board. She pounded him on the back a bit and laughed. "Speaking as a nurse, I would recommend attempting to breathe without water in your mouth."

She bobbed in the waves, waiting for him to catch his breath. "What'd you think?"

Thomas laughed while expelling the last bit of water taken in by his lungs. "That was..." he said, still gasping for a full breath of air. "That was incredible." He began to calm down as only air entered and departed his body. "I haven't felt anything like it since dropping by Risa when I was on the Everest."

Penny gave a giggle. "Given the prime recreational activity there, that's really saying something, huh?" She spied another wave and took off, chasing, catching and riding it in almost back to their position. She dropped back down and straddled her board again, moving back over to him and lying on her board, looking up at the sky. "It's different at home," she said. "I can't track the wave pattern there. But I have to say, this still gives me the same feeling when the curl surrounds me."

"What?" Thomas chuckled in response to her question. "No, at Risa, I did quite a bit of parasailing. They've got quite a few nice mountain ranges I've jumped off of with a good glider."

His eyes began to track another wave, but he chose to watch this one instead of chase and ride it. He would ride another one in a minute. "Do you miss it? The real deal?"

She nodded. "Yeah. 'Randomness' is one of my absolute favorite contradictions. On the one hand," she said, holding out a hand to the sky, "you try to avoid it. You have exacting designs, protocols, records, weather charts, even words to say at particular moments. You plot out and plan your lives and try to account for all variables so that randomness is kept to a minimum." She held up her other hand. "And then yet you try to recreate the illusion of it. You mimic it on holodecks, you engage in sport where it's you against nature, you even gamble, pretending that you have a 'chance' at winning or losing. Weird, weird behavior."

Thomas spotted a wave he thought he could handle. He pushed forward and stood on his board as the wave rose. A smile appeared on his face as he carefully balanced himself on the board as he rode the wave towards Penny. He entered the water while the wave weakened and disappeared into the ocean, popping up near her and paddling over. "What would life be without contradictions?" he asked casually, his adrenaline surging from a successful ride. "Life is built off random moments. If everything was predictable, life wouldn't be worth living."

"Exactly!" Penny said. "But people are desperate to try and find order in chaos, as if that's going to help them control it, and then try to program chaos in an orderly way. Do you know how hard that is?" She shook her head. "You all think you're balanced and set, then suddenly--" she reached over and yanked his board out from under him, laughing with glee at his expression as he flipped backwards into the ocean.

He bobbed back to the surface, coughing loudly as he tried to force water from his lungs. If only Tom hadn't been in the middle of a breath when he was sent underwater... "Stealing my board," he gasped, as his breathing again returned to normal. "Not cool." Smiling, he took a deep breath and dove beneath the surface. He swam down at a curve, pushing himself back upward to flip Penny's board, hoping to turn the tables.

Penny looked at him under the water, already calculating is path. *Going to break his neck,* she thought, realizing what he was going to try. She immediately grabbed her board and swung herself over, flipping herself into the water just as he made contact with the board.

She came back to the surface, puffing and smirked at him. "You got me back," she said.

Tom arched his eyebrows. "Oh? With all this talk about randomness, I thought I'd toss in a little bit of cause and effect." He returned her smirk with a playful one of his own.

He could feel how much his face displayed the fun he was having. All of the stress he'd been under managing the enlisted crew was being washed away by the ocean and replaced by the most enjoyable day since first boarding the Victory. With all of his prior thoughts about leaving, perhaps there was now a reason to stay after all.

Penny pulled herself back onto her board and started paddling back to shore. When she'd gotten a safe distance from the reef and the waves, she swung around and laid back on her board, one leg crooked over the other. She turned as she heard Thomas glide up next to her. "So do you do that human thing where you find shapes in clouds?"

Human thing? he asked himself as he laid on his board. Without replying first, he took another glance at her. She looked human, to be sure, but humanity was no longer limited to one planet. It was common to meet someone born on colonies or starships or elsewhere in the galaxy. Perhaps that's what she meant.

"You know," he said, padding his board to be just a little closer to hers, "the clouds on Rigel IV make the best rabbits I've ever seen. The moisture isn't as densely packed at most Earth clouds, but it's like you can reach up and feel the fluff of the fur. The visible texture is simply that amazing." He pointed at one off to Penny's right. "Though the holodeck here seems to excel at making sailboats."

"That's not a sailboat," Penny said matter-of-factly, "it is clearly a wedge of swiss cheese." She took a deep breath, her chest swelling with air then letting it out slowly. "A storm's coming from inland," she said. "Less salt on the breeze. We should paddle in soon."

Had it not been for her activities in the transporter room earlier or any of her other quirks, Thomas would have spun around to verify Penny's statement. "There's randomness for you," he said, straining instead to see the swiss cheese in place of the sailboat. "We could ask the computer to forego the storm. Or we could stay in the shallow end as the rain falls." He was really enjoying his time with Penny. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so comfortable with being one-on-one with anyone. In fact, he'd even forgotten that he was a non-comm and her a full fledged officer. Here on the ocean, it was just Tom and Penny.

She smiled at him. "'Tell the computer'? See what I mean? Always trying to control it. See you on shore!" She grinned and paddled to the shore at a steady clip. As her board hit sand, she jumped off and pulled it onto shore. "Computer," she said, "delete board." As the board vanished she laid back down on the warm sand, looking out into the water as Thomas approached.

Thomas turned and sat beside her. Unlike Penny, he left his board on the beach, though several feet from the water. "Do you miss it?" he said, looking out towards the ocean. "The real thing, I mean?"

Penny smiled and turned on her side to face him. "You asked me that one-point-seven hours ago," she said, giggling. "So the question is, do you?"

He did ask that earlier. Thomas mentally facepalmed and did his best to not let his face show how idiotic he felt. Smiling, hoping that that would help play the whole repeating questions thing off, he answered, "Sometimes. There's nothing like a bit of fresh air and adrenaline to get the blood pumping." He'd served on a variety of ships and places near planets, leaving each one behind at some point for another adventure or to compensate for something he missed. Truth was he rarely found satisfaction. He enjoyed so much of his twenty years in Starfleet and had few regrets, but was never satisfied.

Sitting here on this simulated beach, however...

"Wait," he said, his mind coming to a sudden halt. "One point seven hours?" Had they been out here this long? And he wasn't wearing a watch, and a glance at Penny's wrists told him that neither did she. "How did you know that?"

She tilted her head, her face confused for a second, then looked around, then back at him. "How long we were paddling, the number of waves we rode, how long I was sitting around watching you sputter." She giggled again and pointed at a tree near them. "And that shadow's moved too. Nature's clock."

"Let's hope it doesn't snatch us," Tom joked, starting to think about the time. Tonight was poker night with some of the other enlisted chiefs aboard the Victory. Had the ship not recently gone through quite an ordeal, he would have considered canceling it. Tonight was one night he had to be there.

"We should do this again some time," he suggested. "Or something different. In all my travels, there are still a few places I've yet to see. Maybe the good ol' holodeck can help us out?"

"Yeah, maybe," Penny said, then propped herself on her elbow, excited. "Where would you like to go? Oh! We could go DaVinci falls! I hear they are an amazing sight. We could cliff dive! Or we could explore the underwater tunnels! The thermal flows create a perfect temperature. Or we could try swimming under the falls!"

"Sounds perfect." Tom kept his smile, and relished in her eagerness. He was beginning to appreciate it and her boldness more and more. Who knew what would be revealed soon. "How's the evening after next, say 1800?"

"Yeah, that'd be great," Penny said. "It'll give me time to arrange the program." She looked up at the sky as large, dark, grey clouds swept over them. "Guess we should take cover." She blinked her blue eyes at him and giggled again. "Wouldn't want to get wet. I'll be wringing water out of my hair all evening as it is."

"Come on," Thomas said, rising to his feet and extending a hand to help her up. "Least we can do for now is get a drink before the evening calls me away." He had spotted a small tiki bar when he first arrived. Other than leaving the holodeck, it would be the best shelter for now.

She took his hand and stood up, walking with him to the little shack by the upper edge of the beach. "Why would a time of day call you?" she said.

"It's an expression," Tom shrugged. "I've got to meet a few people tonight. If you've read the time right, then I have about half an hour before I have to go." A quick glance downward reminded him that he'd have to change before that too.

"Ah I see," Penny said, nodding. "Staff meeting?"

"Poker night, actually." Tom helped Penny sit first at the bar and then he sat beside her. "It's the first one between the enlisted chiefs since before the incident a few weeks ago. For me, it's the best way to keep up on ship-wide activities."

Behind them, outside of the shelter of the overhang, rain began to fall on the beach. Several generated surfers still out on the water and on the beach began to come inland.

"Oh, cool," Penny said, brightening. "My dad told me about poker. That's with cards and dice, right?"

Thomas smiled, plotting to set aside time for a lesson in the future. "Just cards. But I guess it really depend on who's playing. There are quite a few different varieties." Looking to the bartender, Thomas tapped on the counter. "Whiskey, neat. And..." his voice trailed off, looking back to Penny for her drink.

"One azure lemonade," Penny said. She took the tall glass of blue liquid and sipped a bit, before looking back out at the storm. "So, what happens next?"

"We hope the simulated lightning doesn't fry the holodeck and traps us in," Tom replied with a sly grin just before sampling the whiskey. He glanced down at the glass, noting that the synthesized stuff needed some work. Maybe in his spare time...

"Sadly though, tonight ends here." He paused, noticing how blue her eyes were. He'd save that remark for the next time he saw Penny. "Duty calls." He raised his glass for a toast. "To surfing and new adventures."

"'Ōkole maluna," Penny said, brightly. She clinked her glass against his and took a sip then put her glass down. "Computer," she said, "end program." The holodeck grid came back and she walked over to her sarong, pulling it off the floor and tying it back around herself and over her swimsuit. She clasped her hands behind her back and grinned at him. "See you in a couple days." She walked out of the holodeck, skipping a bit into the corridor.


Penny Naroot
Chief Helm

CPO Thomas Barnes
Transporter Specialist

 

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