Working out

Posted on Mon Apr 25th, 2022 @ 1:17pm by Uhlan Ezra Perez & Lieutenant Hatham tr'Krotash

1,765 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Chapter V: The Calm Before The Storm
Location: Holodeck, Ourainavassa

Following the mishap the last time, Perez had begrudgingly accepted the advice to leave the safety protocols on the holodeck engaged. To maintain a sense of challenge, however, they had increased the number of opponents in the training programme. After a good hour, they had finally struck down the last holographic fighter.

"Computer, scores."

"You have defeated twenty-three opponents in single combat, over a period of fifty-six minutes."

A slight improvement on the previous run, they realised - but since they were the only one using the programme, there was nobody to compare to. Well, that wasn't quite true. Miles had attempted it, once, but he'd been solidly beaten by only the third fighter. But there was someone else who could provide an actual score to compare against, Perez suddenly realised. With a chuckle, they tapped their combadge. "Perez to Hatham, if you have a minute, could you stop by the holodeck? Got a challenge for you."

"A Challenge?" Hatham replied without moving from tactical table strewn with locations, points of contact - dozens of potentialities, but precious little certainly. As if he needed any more challenges with the timeline for rescuing his family and the others moved up yet AGAIN. The PaDD in his hand cracked from the pressure he inadvertently applied at that thought. "What sort of challenge?"

Perez chuckled. "A little bit of sport. I thought maybe taking your mind of work for a little while would do you some good. I know how much is on the line for you, but you need to let off some steam to keep a clear head. Come to the holodeck and I'll show you what I mean."

Hatham looked at the cracked PaDD in his hand. "Might be a good idea." He activated his site to site transport and appeared a second later in the holodeck. "So what is this challenge?"

"Good to see you, too, Hatham," Perez greeted the Romulan. "I've brought a few training simulations with me when I transferred from Amelia. Used to run them without safety protocols, but when I ended up getting stabbed in the shoulder by a holographic Gorn, Doc Gable wasn't all too happy with me." They laughed. "Single combat, opponents in increasing difficulty, against the clock. No ranged weapons, blades only. I usually run the one-hour programme, but if you're limited on time, we can run a different one as well. How about it?"

Hatham considered it. He could stand a release, and this might work as well as pounding in the holographic faces of Tal'Shiar and certain Senators (satisfying as that had been). And it would certainly be a better outlet than breaking weight training equipment. He drew a blade from his tunic and cracked his neck. "Okay. Do you want to watch or play doubles?"

Perez beamed with excitement. "You know what, I might as well join in. I have another programme designed for squad training that basically sends endless waves of enemies against you, in increasing numbers, until the timer runs out. Computer, load Holodeck programme Perez-Three, set timer to... let's start with fifteen minutes, for a little warmup."

The moment the young Terran spoke, a weapons rack appeared, carrying assorted blades including bat'leths, Romulan swords, halberds, and even a great axe that appeared to be longer than Hatham was tall. "Pick your toy," Perez said with a chuckle, reaching for a pair of elegant short swords that appeared to be of Vulcan design. They gestured towards the five Klingons that had also appeared, armed with bat'leths, mek'leths and, in one case, a large hammer. "Once you've picked up a weapon, a ten second timer starts, and after that, the battle begins. Just Klingons in this one, every wave has one fighter more than the one before, next wave once the current one is down to a single fighter. Either of us gets hit in a way that would be fatal, simulation ends."

With that, they twirled the swords in their hands and adopted an aggressive stance, ready to start fighting.

Putting his personal blade away, Hatham picked up a Romulan sword in one hand and hefted the great axe in the other, swinging it back and forth experimentally as a slow smile formed on his face. He took a step toward the Klingons. "Let's do this. It's a good day for them to die."

"Good choice," Perez replied, grinning, as the weapon rack disappeared. "If you want to switch weapons at any point, you can pick up whatever the opponents drop, or you can throw down your weapons, yell out 'change', and the simulation freezes and brings back the rack. After a minute, the attackers are reset to a randomised starting position and it resumes."

As soon as the rack had vanished, a countdown began, and, as it reached zero, a klaxon sounded. The Klingons began moving on Perez and Hatham - three on Hatham, and two on Perez. Before the first attacker could as much as raise their blade, Perez had jumped up, spun in the air, and cleanly decapitated him, landing in a crouch behind his now headless body. "Let's get this party started, shall we?"

Hatham lounged forward before his opponents could spread out around him and swung the great axe knocking the mek'leth from the hand of one and slicing the hands and bat'leth off another. In a smooth following turn, his sword took the head of the Klingon reaching for a replacement for his mek'leth as he came about to give his full attention, and an evil grin, to the last one. "We'll need more partiers."

Just as Hatham finished speaking, Perez dispatched two of the three remaining enemies with by ramming a sword each into their necks. Immediately, five more Klingons appeared. "You were saying?", Perez said with a chuckle as they turned to face the new attackers.

Only 5? Hatham was momentarily surprised, expecting the next round to have at least one more attacker if not several, but hey, easy warm up. He rushed at them, swinging the great axe, and decapitated one that tried to counter rather than scatter. Another came back at him, blocking the axe with a bat'leth, only to be gutted by Hatham's sword. The Klingon coming at him from behind met the thrust back hilt of the axe and jumped back, narrowly missing a shoulder strike as Hatham swung around with an overhand slash of the sword.

Perez chuckled as they blocked an attack with one sword, then rammed the other sword through the attacker's stomach and pulled upwards. "Okay, this is too easy. I'd say we're warmed up sufficiently. Computer, pause simulation. Load programme Perez-Gamma-two-seven."

Where the holodeck's scenery had so far been blank, it was suddenly replaced with an accurate recreation of Ourainavassa's bridge. "I've been working on this simulation with Mila," Perez explained to Hatham, as their weapons also disappeared, replaced with what they usually carried. "Boarding simulation, intended to train our security personnel. We'll be up against Terrans and Tal Shiar. Shall we?"

Killing both Tal'Shier and Terrans. Hatham gave Perez a toothy smile and took his usual bridge position at the security station. "Excellent. Let's go."

---

"Computer, scores," Perez called out an hour later, after the pair had not only finished the simulation of them being boarded, but also two other simulations of them being the boarders themselves.

"Uhlan Ezra S. Perez: seventy-two
Lieutenant Hatham tr'Krotash: seventy-three"

Perez groaned. "So damn close. Well, drinks are on me next time then." They grinned. "So, feeling a bit more relaxed now?"

"Very close," Hatham laughed. "If I'd been a beat slower you'd have gakked that last guy ahead of me." He pulled an arm in a cross-body warm down stretch. "Yes. I'd needed a good work out. Slamming weights doesn't give the kind of stress reduction as killing Tal'Shiar. And I admit, I rather enjoyed taking out Terrans too." He grinned. "No offense."

"None taken, whatsoever." Perez grinned as they slowly walked up and down the holodeck, which was still projecting one of the ship's corridors, somewhere down in Engineering. "Believe me, I will never forgive them for what they did to me. Computer, end programme."

As the projection disappeared, the young Terran walked up to a station next to the door, before turning back to Hatham, holding two bottles. "Water?"

"Thanks." Hatham accepted the bottle. Hydration after a workout was far less necessary for a Romulan, but still not a bad idea. He took a drink, then cocked a teasing eyebrow at Perez. "But I hope this isn't what you meant by the drinks being on you."

"How dare you suggest I would bring such dishonour onto myself?" Perez laughed. "I've got a nice bottle of Japanese-made whisky in my quarters, actually. Well, okay, I have four. How about the two of us and Rogers get together in the mess hall later and pop them open? This ship's Rogers, of course. Not the Terran one, she's an insufferable bitch."

Hatham nodded in agreement, both to the proposal to invite Rogers and the opinion of the Terran Rogers. "Sounds like a good plan. Though pour her small portions - the last couple times we went drinking I had to carry Rogers back to her quarters."

Perez chuckled. "Wait, you mean this ship doesn't have point-to-point transport? When the MACOs and I went on a bender on Amelia, whoever had to get the transport straight to their quarters first paid the bill." They shook their head. "They were good guys. Shame what happened to them."

Hatham dipped his head a moment in respectful remembrance of the MACOs. "Everyone has their own traditions. Ours is that if you can't walk on your own, you get carried and there will be vid taken for everyone to see."

"Now that sounds like a fun tradition," Perez replied, laughing. "Mind you, I highly doubt I'll ever be on the receiving end. Part of the stuff they did to me was to enhance resistance to poisons. And that includes alcohol. Which is a pain, sometimes."

"Mine is just being Romulan. And size," Hatham chuckled, opening hands as if to frame his large frame. "Poor Rogers - she has no hope of competing. We should invite her to one of these workouts though. She could compete here."

Perez nodded. "True. Well then, shall we say, 2100 hours in the mess hall? Feel free to invite others, might as well have a big night. Who knows when we'll have another opportunity."

 

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