I had a reservation or two about posting this one, but after re-reading it a couple of times, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was. If anyone has another opinion, let me know.
Deck nine was almost empty, as it usually was late second shift. The only time a full crew manned the shuttle bay was first shift, or during an alert. Decks nine, ten, and eleven were actually on the same level as seven and eight. But they were not connected to each other. Decks seven, and eight were near the center of the saucer, and housed sickbay, the brig and deflector control, along with the main phaser control room. Decks nine, ten and eleven, were the shuttle bay at the aft end of the saucer. Deck nine contained the shuttle control room, the observation deck and the plasma control junction for the Warp Nacelle. Deck ten contained the landing bay itself, and deck eleven stored the shuttlecrafts
Shirkuh and
Nuradin when not in use. Captain Atkinson was strolling down the deck nine corridor, such as it was. There was no one else currently on the deck, the only people in the entire section were three engineers replacing a clogged plasma valve on
Nuradin. James paused outside of the door to the Observation Deck, and smiled to himself as he asked himself why he hadn't thought of this earlier. The Observation Deck was essentially the same as the one found on the Constitution class, a little shorter because the landing bay itself was shorter. But because it was shorter, it was also wider, which meant it was almost perfect for what James and Tenis were about to do. James entered the room, since he was the first one there, it was his job to get the mats and the equipment out. They had stashed all of it in a little known and seldom used locker near the entrance. It was a challenge to get all of it in the locker, but it did fit...barely. James pulled hard and its contents popped out of the locker hard, and threw him onto his butt. James wondered if it would do that everytime he or Tenis tried to pry that stuff out of there. He went about setting the mats out, falling on the deck was never fun, and the mats at least softened the landing. In addition to the mats were storage cases for their protective equipment. His contained gloves, a helmet, boots, mouth guard, and an athletic supporter. Hers contained the same, minus the athletic supporter. All the stuff you'd expect to find a kick-boxer to be wearing during a collegiate match. He sat down on the mat and opened his container. He pulled off his shoes and socks, then his trousers, revealing the boxer shorts he wore specifically for the sparring sessions. He folded them up and placed them in the storage locker. Then he pulled his duty uniform off over his head, revealing a thin white t-shirt. He folded up his duty uniform and placed it on top of his trousers. Getting up, he glanced over at the chronometer, he still have a minute or so until Tenis was supposed to arrive, so he began to loosen up. He had to admit that he was tired of her throwing him around the room every time they got together, but he knew that this was good for him, so he'd keep going, despite the bruising his ego got every time they were through.
She entered the room in a variation of her normal duty uniform, same type of fabric, but slightly more form fitting than the one she normally wore. She gave James the smile a cat would normally give a mouse before the cat started to play with it. The same smile she had given him ever since she saw his reaction to it. The same reaction he still gave right now, a slight shudder. That shudder promptly turned her smile into a satisifed grin. She pulled off her shirt first, revealing the sports bra underneath She knew that James wouldn't fix on her shapely breasts for long, if at all. What she wore underneath her trousers were short shorts, cut off at mid thigh. It wasn't hard to see what half the crew saw in her. Long legs, firm toned stomach, pleasing face. James had to admit that he found her to be very attractive, almost intoxicating. But he also knew that if he spent any time admiring her figure, she was going to have him down for the count faster than he could say some lame pick-up line. "I said, who is she?"
James cursed at himself for being distracted, its not like he hasn't seen this before, "A contact."
She scowled slightly as she put on her equipment, "That is not an answer, James."
He shrugged, "It's all I'm prepared to give you."
She laughed, "You do not think I could not beat it out of you? Remember what you said when we first started this...what happens here, stays here."
It was his turn to scowl, "I would think you would be a little more restrained than that."
She shook her head, "Gods you really are that clueless! All those times you talked about your insecurity with women, I had thought it was a ploy, a clever one at that, to get close to me. But you really do not know anything about women do you? You did not even think that I might be jealous?"
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out, he closed his eyes for a second before re-opening them and starting slowly, "What would you have to be jealous about?"
She turned away and lowered her head, composing herself before turning back around, a playful look in her eyes as she crept towards him, "For the last nine months you and I, with few exceptions, have spent three days a week sparring with each other. Andorians are aggressive, you know that. If an Andorian were to look at what we were doing, that Andorian would say we were having a relationship." She stopped walking so close that he could smell her, the smell wasn't any different then the way she normally smelled during these sessions, but there was something... disarming about the way she smelled, or maybe it was just her posture at the moment. "I did not expect anyone else on the ship to understand either, which is good." She turned around and went back to the other side of the mat. James released the breath he didn't even realize he was holding, "A few months ago there was a scuttlebutt going around the ship that we were actually bedding one another."
James finally composed himself again, "I had heard that, I did wonder, was that the reason you almost broke my jaw around the same time?"
With her back turned he couldn't see her face, and her antenae didn't give away any hint of her emotion, "It squelched those rumors pretty fast. Which was my intention, but..."
James sighed, finally understanding, "You were also trying to get the point across to me, in your own Andorian way, that you were interested. Weren't you?"
She spun around, smiling, "Yes! You can be taught."
James fidgeted slightly, "Well this, uh...does this change anything between us?"
She grinned playfully, "Let us put it this way. When I take you down tonight, you will probably get excited again. Instead of running off to a cold shower, why do we not take care of that right here." He stopped fidgeting...not sure of how to respond. He simply gave her the 'deer in the headlights' look. She popped the mouth guard in her mouth, and dropped into a fighting stance. "So, who is she?" She repeated.
He popped his mouth guard into his mouth, and bit down on it to make sure it was a good fit. "She's a Lyran. I met her ten years ago, when I was still on the
Germany." He dropped into his stance and signaled that he was ready. She danced in and opened with a left jab at his rib cage, he turned it aside and responded with a quick left of his own, which she met just as easily. "The
Germany had responded to a distress call from a planetoid in the non-aligned region of space between the Federation and the Lyran Star Empire." She brought her left leg up and around for a roundhouse kick. He noticed that she was already committed high, so he dropped to a knee and lanced out with a right jab at her right leg. It worked, sort of, she stumbled back as he scored a hit. But in the process of her stumbling back, she brought her left leg down hard on the back of his head. Seeing that it was going to happen a split second before it did, he leaned foreward to soften the blow. It sent him somersaulting across the mat. He came up on the far side in the three-point stance, and quickly spun away from her follow up sweep attack. He danced out of her range and shook his head to clear the cobwebs. "When we arrived, there was a Lyran Destroyer in orbit of the planetoid, that was blasting it apart with its disrupters." He darted in, spun away from her left jab, and jabbed her with both of his fists on her exposed side. He quickly danced back out of her range.
"Well placed," She gasped as she spun around to face him. "But your constant dancing wears you out, it happens everytime." She grinned savagely, "I hope you do not wear yourself out too much."
"I dance around because you're still stronger than me, and you're more agile than me. If I tried a stand-up fight, you'd cream me every time."
She laughed, "Yes, that is one way of dealing with a superior opponent, but there are better ways. You have to use the attacker's strength against them. Try to observe, attack me."
He nodded and came at her, cautiously, but still more aggressively than he would normally have done. She stood there with her arms at the ready. He aimed for her midsection. He threw his punch. He never landed the blow. The room spun, and when it finally stablized he was on his back, with her kneeling beside him. It took a full second for him to realize what had happened. He landed so hard on his back that he didn't notice the air rush from his lungs until he gasped for air. He moved to get up, but she placed her hand on his chest and shook her head. He put his head back on the mat, and forced out a very weak, "What was that?"
She smiled, her left hand was holding her mouth guard, while her right hand was out of her glove as she carassed his jaw line "I used your momentum to pick you up, flip you, and slam you down to the mat. Took almost no effort at all on my part." She moved her hand from his jaw to his chest, "When you recover, I will show you again, slower, and with a description of how you can do it. Then I will expect you to do it to me. For the moment though, continue your story."
Closing his eyes to collect his thoughts, he continued, "It didn't take long for us to drive off the Lyran Destroyer, they weren't interested in a fight. I lead the landing party to find the source of the distress call." He paused to take a couple breaths. He could tell that he was stunned and would need a couple minutes to recover. She had moved her hand back to his throat and jaw line before pulling it away entirely, standing up and walking around. He took the opportunity to spit his mouth guard out. "I found a large number of Lyran refugees on the planetoid. They said that they were fugtives, but that they hadn't committed anything that would be considered a crime in the Federation."
She stopped pacing, and knelt down beside him again, "Ten years ago, there was rumors of a power shift in the Lyran Empire at that time."
"That was it, they had supported the wrong side, and now the new count was hunting them down. The Captain had offered them asylum, but they turned it down, initially."
"What happened?"
"A Lyran Cruiser arrived and drove off
Germany. However instead of simply blasting us from orbit, the Lyrans came down in force. They probably noticed our landing party's biosigns and decided that they wanted prisoners. We holed up in what was left of their ship. During the fire-fight one of the Lyran refugees, who was helping us try to hold back the Lyrans, was hit. She fell next to me. I was forced to take cover when the Lyrans saturated my position with laser fire. During that time, I used part of my landing jacket tunic to stop her bleeding, she claimed that I had saved her life. It took eight days for
Germany to return with the
Constellation. During the whole time, we were under near constant attack. But with the fortifications that had been set up, and sheer determination, we were able to hold them off. The few survivors thanked us for our assistance, and accepted our offer for asylum." James shook his head, grasped the mouth piece and put it back into his mouth. He grabbed Tenis' hand and she helped him to his feet.
"You ready?" She asked, when he nodded she readied herself. "Come at me again, slowly." James moved in at a much slower pace this time. "Now I am going to sidestep you, and grasp your arm here and here." She took hold of his arm with both of her hands. "Normally this is where your momentum would allow me to pick you up, but since you have almost no momentum, I'm going to have to put some effort into this." As she pulled up on the hand grasping his wrist she moved her other hand to his back. She picked him up, flipped him so he was horizontal, and dropped him to the ground. She bent over him again, putting her hand on his chest. This time he made no move to get up. She was panting as she sat down beside him. "There must... be... more to... your story."
"There is." he started, wincing slightly at the pain in his wrist. "About six months later the refugees simply vanished. Starfleet had lost all trace of them. They turned up eventually, at the core of an organization known as the Tiger Hearts."
"I am not familiar with them."
"Very few are, most people that are aware of the Orion pirates seem to think that they are independant pirates that team up occasionally to cause serious mischeif. That's not exactly what its like. Starfleet Intelligence has identified three seperate Cartels, organizations as it were. The Orions we're dealing with tommorow are one, the Tiger Hearts are another."
"So you have a contact that is inside a pirate cartel? Is she a spy?"
"No. She's an every day member, the commander of one of their Battle Raiders. What Starfleet Intelligence discovered when they learned of this organization, is that they bear us no ill will at all. But they are a thorn in the side for the Lyrans, the Kzinti and the Klingons. Mostly the Lyrans. We maintain covert contacts with them, and offer them what support we can. In return, they provide us with assistance and intelligence regarding the Orion Cartel, the Camboro Cartel, one that operates along the Kzinti - Federation border, and the Lyran Star Empire."
"That enemy of my enemy saying?"
"Essentially, it's not exactly something we want out in the open, I'm surprised that Captain Wesley brought it up with you in the room."
She shrugged, "Normally you would expend most of your effort when slamming the other person into the ground. The Harder you push, the longer the attacker will be immobilized." She helped him to his feet. "Are you ready to give it a try?" He nodded. She charged. He stepped out of the way, grasped her wrist like she showed him. He planted his other hand on her back and his leg against the ground like she showed him. Picked her up, and dropped her to the ground. As he kneeled down next to her, she was smiling and clapping, "Well done."
"That was almost effortless."
"Because you did not put any force into the body slam. I have to wonder, when you told me that I was better off not knowing all those years ago, were you referring to her?"
"I was, I had contacted her. Had the Klingons done something against us, her ship would have come in and kicked Klank in the teeth. That would have been a PR disaster, but it was preferable to the alternative of the
Saladin being towed back to Qo'nos."
"I agree. Now, shall we finish what we started?" He looked down at her, nodded, and extended his hand to help her up. As she was getting up she grinned wolfishly, "How long do you think it will take?" He looked at her quizically as she spun away from him. She dropped into her fighting stance. "I could take you down any time now, how long will it take?"
Understanding flashed in his eyes as he charged towards her, "Let's find out."
Topic: Sword and the Targ (Read 13137 times)