The Beach; From the Depths (Part 1)

Posted on 30 Dec 2012 @ 5:27pm by Lieutenant Kiri Cho & Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Lieutenant Commander Pola Ni Dhuinn M.D. & Lieutenant Commander Dea Mialin & Chief Warrant Officer 4 Cyrus Kiwosk & Warrant Officer Evan Kell & Crewman Athlen

4,021 words; about a 20 minute read

Mission: Episode 02 - Resupply
Location: Vega Colony, Puam Digh
Timeline: MD9 1230

[ON]

Kiri felt some of her strength had gone, sitting back down on her blanket she wearily watched some of the others talk and swim. It seemed to be going well, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Further down the beach she could make out other members of the crew. She couldn't pick out Maenad though or Kohl, were they not coming? Having played a game with Liyar and talked to him, Dea, Athlen and Mor'an a little she wasn't lonely. Yet she wanted to spend time with them, or have someone else come to talk to her.

At least it was warmer now. The sun was high and with a slight breeze it was lovely, her all body swimsuit was even starting to get a little too hot. Kiri dared not remove her wrap that wound around her chest and hips, instead just rolling onto her front to try and cool herself down. Pad in hand she went back to reviewing the sensor upgrades that were almost completed.

"Oh migawd! But the water is so nice and warm and sparkling blue! Don't you think so?" Tiffany asked as she unfurled her beach towel. "KELL! KELL! Over here!" She waved to the Capellan intelligence officer.

The man she was calling, Kell, walked up and over, clomping through the white rifts of sand. After a few hours on the beach he had shed his shirt for the simplistic swimwear given by Starfleet. He had a towel wrapped around his shoulders and waved back as he came up to them. "Afternoon."

"Oh, look at you all wrapped up! Is that one of those Risan sweat out the toxins kind of suits? Oh, isn't this a great day, with the warm sand on the beach and the great big blue sky overhead! It's so nice not being cooped up inside a ship for every moment of the day! It's such a beautiful day, don't you think so? Well is it? A Risan toxin sweat suit?"

Tiffany looked expectantly at Cho.

Kiri looked rather confused at the woman before she was even sure she was talking to her. Speaking softly as she half rolled into her side to talk, "No, its just a swim suit." Kiri didn't really know anything about Risa only it was hedonistic and somewhere she'd absolutely hate. She also didn't know this woman, she was speaking so fast.

"Wow! What a nice swimsuit, but how are you ever going to get a good tan in that? You'll just leather your face and not get a nice golden glow. And guys don't like pale pasty skin, it's such a turn off. Look at Kell here, he's kind of pasty and that's kind of a turn off for me. But, he has other qualities that he's working on so maybe he'll work out as a halfway decent boyfriend. I said maybe Kell so don't get your hopes up! So I'm Tiffany, from operations. Yeah, I know it's pretty boring but you gotta start somewhere. Say, you want to get a game going of something, cause it's not like you're tanning or anything and anyway being up and moving is better because you get a more even tanning anyway. So how about it? Great! What games do you like to play, I've brought loads of equipment to keep everyone entertained! Later tonight we're going to do a campfire with a singalong and you can come too and nobody will care if you sing badly because we're also going to have s'mores! So what game will it be?..."

Kiri didn't tan, she would burn and her skin would peel off in chunks. She also didn't want anyone looking at her body and skin, which was the the point behind her ultra conservative swimming costume. People talking about those sorts of relationships made her uncomfortable, a game though, "What do you mean what game?"

"Oh, I got tons of games because you want to have fun when you go to the beach right! I mean, really, everybody is coming and there's going to be lots of activities. We can have football or lawn darts or volleyball or frisbee, so many games all at once. And tournaments! We can do tournaments and I have board games and word games as well as stuff so we can build big huge giant sand castles! Oh! We should build a sand Galileo! Wouldn't that be fun! A big sand ship and then we can do smaller ones around it for the various good parts of the ship like the bridge or engineering (with little sand warp cores!) and...okay, yes, we'll do the science labs too I mean no one said we wouldn't I don't know why you got so upset by that but we'll build science labs and maybe the mess hall for our crew nights when we're all laughing and having fun! So you never said what game you wanted to play, or maybe you just wanted to go swimming for a little bit because that's fun too...but you can't swim all the time because you'll just get all tired and stuff and fall asleep and get a bad sunburn on your face, but swimming for a little bit at a time is fun, so is just splashing in the water like Kell thought we should do earlier! (He's trying to be my boyfriend but he's got A Lot to Learn About Treating a Lady.) So, instead of just going on and on and on and on about building sandcastle science labs, why not say what game you want to play, I brought loads of them so everyone can have fun!"

So many words that came nowhere close to answering her question. Kiri gave a weak smile and answered softly, "I think whatever game you choose would be fine," What else could she say? She still had no idea what games had been brought nor who was going to be playing them.

"That's great! But I think we need to find a few more people to play because there's just the three of us and that's not fair because Kell will insist that I be on his team, because he fancies me and wants to try to be a better person so that I'll agree to let him be my boyfriend, but that means you'd be all by yourself and that's not fair! So we'll just have to find someone for you...do you have a boyfriend? Or girlfriend if that's what you prefer because we could go find whoever and bring them back here then it'll be something like a double date and playing beach games is always fun on a date, especially when you're waiting to talke Sunset Strolls because those are always romantic. At least, I guess they are but I don't get a lot of chances to take Sunset Strolls because we live on a ship and really, we don't have a lot of sunsets! But we could find someone to be on your team if you'd like, or we can just take a ball and throw it around, but that gets boring after awhile. Or maybe play one of the many board games I also have because those can be fun too...but since it's a beach party I think we should find more people to play some other active game. Okay, so who do you want on your team?"

TAG
***

1230 hours

What did it mean to go to the beach? Maenad sat at her wooden desk, an uncut peanut butter and jam sandwich in her hand, on whole wheat. She was sitting at her writing desk in front of the window, where she, not surprisingly, wrote. She, too, sketched and drew there, but right now it was where she was eating lunch and going over the question of what it meant to go to the beach.

The beach was not a place that she enjoyed. At least, not in the sense that people meant by going there. At the beach you were expected to take off your shoes or wear sandals; neither of which Maenad liked doing. She liked shoes, and no matter what the labels or manufacturer said, sand always found its way inside them - and it takes years to get all the sand out of them once it's in there. At the beach, you were expected to wear as little clothing as possible, else be labelled some kind of prudish square - that she was used to, but at the beach there was no hiding it. If everyone else was wearing a bikini or had their top off, meanwhile you're sitting there in long sleeves, there is no question of who's the sore thumb. And then there's the swimming and the splashing, the sitting in the shallows, and the foolish giggling behaviour. There's the games in the sand, how much she hated volleyball and frisbee - she could have done a doctorate on the subject. And the sand in your lunch. The Johnny Bravos, the Cyrus Kiwosks, of the world all conglomerate at the beach, and all the bimbos that lap them up, both figuratively and literally, squeal for them. Laying in the sun, showing off their baked toned skin, daring you to imagine them at night. It sickened her; Maenad hated the beach.

Whenever she went, no matter what she wore or how much sunblock she slathered, she would come out as red as tomato. She didn't swim because she didn't like taking off her clothes in front of people, being terribly self-conscious about her lankiness. She had always thought that what made a woman attractive was by hiding what she had, but on reflection Maenad wondered how well that philosophy had worked out for her. With an audible sigh, she took a drink of apple juice and realised the irony of her kid-lunch tied to her kid-thoughts. What she hated most about the beach was what it did to her mind; she was thinking about body-image, attractiveness, both male and female bimbos, judgement, what kind of lies she could tell to make others feel more comfortable with her lack of beachiness, how long it would be before she could rub her eyes again without crying over the burns, only to cry some more as her salty tears stung her cheeks and nose.

The only reason she was going was because Kiri had asked her to. Otherwise, even if Captain Saalm herself had told her to go, she would have stayed home and read. Maenad went into her bedroom, went through her closet and found a long and thin white dress, the frilly skirt of which hung to about halfway down her shins. It was sleeveless, which meant that she would need to wear something over top. She chose a bright red buttonless cardigan that was thin enough to keep her from sweating, but thick enough to keep the sun off her. Just in case, she exchanged her underclothes for a two piece black bathing suit, already sensing the regret as she slipped them on. She then fully dressed herself, found her straw sunhat with a black bow, dug out her sandals and packed a woven shoulder bag. She threw in a book, the darkest purple sweater she could find, a beach towel, a blanket for sitting on, a PADD, and finally her commbadge. She replicated a bottle of sunblock, coated her exposed skin two or three times, tossed the bottle in with the rest of the stuff, and finally put on her black sunglasses.

As Maenad headed out for the transporter, she rummaged through her bag for her comm and pressed it between her thumb and forefinger. "Panne to Captain Saalm," she said, uncertain how to address the captain, feeling her awkwardness with her coming through. "I'm on my way to the transporter room."

Lirha was in one of the cargo bays searching through some stores when Maenad's voice sounded through her commbadge. "I'll be there in a few minutes." she replied with a tap of the device, then continued with her requisitions. She had spent the last thirty minutes digging through supply crates and assembling various items for their beach outing, including a couple hard-to-find flotation rafts that she had managed to 'borrow' from their Hunley class shuttlecraft.

Taking one last look around the cargo bay to make sure she didn't forget anything, Lirha nodded to herself in approval and sealed the crate she had prepared. She unclipped her commbadge and set it on top of the gray container, then headed off towards the transporter room.

The captain arrived with a swish of the doors, wearing a chocolate-colored beach dress that did a rather poor job of hiding the gold bikini she was wearing underneath. A small black bag of her personal belongings was slung over her shoulder, and her dark hair was let down and flowed freely across her shoulders. When she saw Maenad, she couldn't help but smile. The tall science chief was dressed in a long white dress with a red cardigan across her shoulders, and sported a large straw-like hat with dark sunglasses that hid her eyes and tops of her cheeks. Upon first sight, Lirha thought she seemed overdressed, but quickly noticed the dark outline of what appeared to be a bathing suit beneath the thin fabric.

"Sorry I'm late...I had to collect a few items before we depart." she explained, then moved forward towards the operations officer who was manning the transporter console.

"Lock on to my commbadge and transport the crate to our destination." she instructed the petty officer, then watched as he began to manipulate the controls.

"Yes, sir." he replied with a nod, then expertly slid a combination of three fingers forward on the console to complete the transporter sequence. "Transport complete." he confirmed.

Lirha moved next to Maenad and gave her a friendly squeeze on her arm. "You look nice." she said, complimenting her friend's appearance. "Are you ready to beam down?"

When the captain joined her in the transporter room, a million butterflies took off from in her stomach. Everything about the captain said that she liked the beach, right down to the hard to miss bikini she wore beneath her revealing beach dress. Maenad didn't like that she could imagine what was under there as clearly as if there were nothing there at all, and suddenly felt like she wasn't wearing enough to hide herself despite her too much clothes for the beach. She gave a nervous smile, wanting to tell the captain she wanted to keep everything a secret, but the transporter chief being there prevented her from opening her mouth. "Yes, sir," she nodded, slightly jerking at Lirha's touch.

Stepping up and onto the transporter pad, Lirha wondered why Maenad seemed so jittery. The light touch on the woman's arm had caused her to react strangely, and the captain wondered why she was being called 'sir', despite the fact that she had shared Maenad's bed and was currently out of uniform. Not wanting to start second-guessing their activities the previous night, Lirha let out a mental shrug and waited for the science chief to join her on the pad. Once Maenad took her place, Lirha gave the command to transport. "Energize." she said, then watched as a bright beam of blue lights encompassed her body and the familiar sensation of the transporter consumed her.

The brightness first hurt Maenad's eyes as she rematerialised on the beach. The unwelcome feeling of sand beneath her soles drooped her shoulders. Maenad immediately turned to see that Lirha - Captain Saalm, she corrected - was there with her. That she was brought a little comfort to her. She might have been uncomfortable, but being there with somebody who was confident and liked her somehow made it a little better. About a hundred metres away was some of the bluest and most stunning water that Maenad had ever seen, and up in the sky was one of the most blistering suns she had ever felt. Behind her sunglasses, she squinted - she could feel the heat on her arms through the cardigan already. She looked around for a few seconds before spotting a group of people off in the distance. "I think I can see Miss Cho," she said finally to Lirha, the captain, she force-corrected in her head.

Lirha materialized and blinked as she glanced around. The smell of the salt-water beach seeped through her nostrils and she immediately took note of the strong and warm sun which was beating down on her green skin. She cast a quick glance over at Maenad and smiled, then tucked her arm in between hers and began to walk towards the congregation of crew members. "I hope we're not late." she commented as Lirha noticed the nearby crate she had previously had transported to the site.

Maenad took the captain's arm in hers, but she was noticeably stiff about it. She didn't want everybody thinking she had hooked up so soon after being assigned and began to grow self-conscious. She calmed herself, though, as she knew that walking arm-in-arm was hardly suggestive of anything for two women and that she was being ridiculous. She doubted that anybody would think a thing, finally. "What's in the box?" she asked Lirha as they neared the others, having to distract herself.

"A few snacks, medkit, some scuba apparatus, inflatable rafts, that sort of stuff..." the captain replied with a mischievous glint in her green eyes.

Dea greeted Maenad and the Captain after doing some snorkeling. "Good day. It's a beautiful day to spend some time at the beach. Lieutenant Cho has done a nice job of arranging this gathering."

Lirha smiled at the blue-eyed flight control chief and nodded in agreement as she glanced around the beach. "Yes, this is a very nice arrangement. I don't ever remember Vega having such a pristine beach...must be the joys of terraforming." she replied with a friendly wink.

Maenad stood a step behind the captain's right side. She didn't quite smile, but she wasn't frowning, either. She gave a polite smile to say hello to Dea, whom she'd met at Kiri's luncheon a few days before. Behind her sunglasses she was looking over the rest of the group, a few of them she didn't immediately recognise. She was happy to see Kiri, though. And in a bathing suit? She didn't think it was possible.

"I didn't think so either Captain, until this morning when I went for a short jog along the beach." Dea nodded to Maenad, "There's a lot going on so enjoy yourself."

"Oh...I will." the Orion answered with a big grin, then pointed towards the crate she had transported. "There are a couple recreational items in there if you wish to have a look. Just don't sink any of the rafts...I took them from our Hunley." she added with a wink.

Athlen walked up to the group, having broken away from Liyar a while ago. Where the Vulcan had gone off to, Athlen couldn't say. He frowned as he attempted to spy the diplomat over the growing line of people, to no avail. He shrugged and waved hello to Dea, Maenad and Lirha. "Hello there," he greeted with a smile.

"ATHLEN!" Cyrus bellowed from down the beach a little, he was jogging up from where he had left Pola and the others. "HAVE YOU SEEN LI ANYWHERE?" As he approached he spotted both the Captain and what an Orion Slave Girl would typically be wearing, bringing old academy fantasies back into his head. Then he saw Panne and any image that was originally in his mind was reduced to a Warty witch cackling evilly.

Turning at the sound of his voice being screamed from across the beach, and wincing at the noise, Athlen smiled weakly in Cyrus's direction. He cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted back (in a much lower voice), "No, we were playing pid-nahk and he slunk off somewhere!"

"Damn, I was hoping to get him to play a game of volleyball. Vulcans don't have an advantage at volleyball right...Right?" He asked desperately.

Lirha approached the sociologist and security officer with a friendly wave. "Sorry I'm late." she said with a small smile, "There are some drinks and sporting equipment in the crate, if you'd like." she offered with a motion of her hand towards the large gray cargo container she had transported from Galileo.

"Oh yes, we had plenty of fun with that earlier," Athlen promised with a grin. The image of Liyar instinctively catching a football thrown at two hundred miles an hour just because it was thrown and losing all of his accumulated points rung out spectacularly in Athlen's head. Oh, yeah, but Vulcans weren't competitive.

Standing with the captain in front of everybody greeting them was starting to make Maenad feel out of place. She didn't want to be the centre of attention right, greeting everybody independently, telling everyone where she had been, what she had had for breakfast, what she was going to do all afternoon. "Mister Athlen," she said back to the Rigelian as she crept out from behind Lirha. She slipped between him and Dea over toward where Kiri was laying talking to two people she didn't know. "Miss Cho," she smiled as she pulled the blanket from her bag and sat down beside her, careful not to get any sand on it.

Kiri had almost started to doze off a little, missing the arrival of the others. When Maenad spoke up it took several seconds before she was able to react, "Good afternoon," Spoken as if she had just staggered out of bed.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Maenad said back to her, touching her arm. "I didn't mean to wake you,"

Kiri wasn't expecting contact and winced slightly, even though her swimsuit. A few seconds afterwards she forced a smile, "It's my fault, I shouldn't be sleeping right now." Shaking her hair out a little she sat up, "I wasn't sure you were coming." Most other people, other than Kohl had already arrived and gone off to do their own things.

"I wasn't sure I was coming, either," she confessed with quiet laugh.

"Oh," Kiri looked rather dejectedly at the sea for a few seconds. So Maenad didn't want to come to events like this to spend time with her, at least enough that it was sure thing. Kohl still wasn't here either, was she entirely wrong about who her friends were? "Thank you though, for coming."

"Thank you for inviting me," she replied, following Kiri's eyes out to sea. "How long have you been here?"

"Hello Lieutenant-Professor," Cyrus greeted cheerfully.

Maenad looked up at Kiwosk, whose massive sweat-glistening figure cast her in shadow. Man, she thought. "Cyrus," she returned.

Cyrus chuckled. forty-five seconds and I'm already under her skin...I can work with this. "I'm fine thank you very much for asking." He grinned. "I had a bagel with butter for breakfast, it was surprisingly delicious. I'm normally a more wholesome breakfast man myself." He chuckled. "My stomach is still sore from where you palmed it... where did you learn all that?"

To Be Continued...

[OFF]

--

CAPT Lirha Saalm
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Pola Ni Dhuinn
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Kiri Cho
Assistant Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

Petty Officer 2nd Class Tiffany Darwisch
Operations crewmember
USS Galileo

Warrant Officer Evan Kell
Intelligence Officer, SFI
USS Galileo

Crewman Athlen
Sociologist, SSC
USS Galileo

Lieutenant JG Dea Mialin
Chief Flight Control Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Maenad Panne
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

CWO Kiwosk
Security/Tactical Officer
USS Galileo

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