Bang Bang...

Posted on 04 Feb 2013 @ 11:18pm by Lieutenant Commander Pola Ni Dhuinn M.D. & Chief Warrant Officer 4 Cyrus Kiwosk

3,091 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Episode 03 - Frontier
Location: USS Galileo Deck X- Holodeck
Timeline: -MD02 2315 hours

[ON]

Standing behind a pillar, Pola felt her chest rapidly expand and collapse as she tried to catch her breath. Closing her eyes, she tried to focus her breaths on being low and slow in order to give her time to move again, not allowing Cyrus to realise where she is. Clutching her phaser against her chest, she tries to listen carefully for any signs that he might be nearby.

Cyrus was perfectly in his element, his rifle poised easily in front of him, this stock braced comfortably into his shoulder. His breathes were even, letting the air slowly out of his lungs in a controlled stream. He scanned the ruins for signs of life.

As she surveyed the layout of the ruin infront of her, Pola tried to figure out the best vantage point. Moving her hand, she pressed a finger against the communicator within her ear, keeping her voice extremely quite as she tried to keep herself hidden. "You realise when I asked for you help in updating my skills that this was not quite what I had in mind."

Cyrus smiled and made a similar action. "I always felt that live demonstrations give the best chance for improvement." He chuckled through the comm scanned around. "Is that your foot peeking out from behind that pillar Pola?" He teased.

Pola restrained herself before she instictly moved, looking down at the foot in question before reactviating her communicator. "You play dirty my dear. Outright dirty." As her hand fell away, Pola made a dash for an opening she could see ahead. She'd juggled and weighted it up and it seemed a better option to head in doors then to try dodge around out in the open.

"But you're learning..." He chuckled through the comm, before cutting communications. He steadied his rifle as the foot disappeared behind the Pillar and suddenly watched as she bolted for the inside. She's going to try the corridors to play her advantage. I won't have as much room to maneuver, smart move. He thought to himself. Climbing down slowly from his perch he tapped a couple buttons on the wrist tricorder and placed a small beacon by where he last saw Pola. As he landed on the ground he moved through cover checking his surroundings carefully as he approached the entrance way to the deeper ruins. It was dark, which forced him to turn on his flashlight. Peering into the darkness, he noted the dust had settled around in small areas. Her foot prints

As she kept her back against the corridor walls, Pola only used her flashlight to light up the rooms which she passed by. The place was like a practical maze. She realised that she needed the torch at all times but she couldn't risk Cyrus finding her. The safeties might have been activated but those phasers packed a whallop.

As she felt her nose start to tickle, Pola quickly realised that she was about to sneeze. Coming to an immediate standstill, the dust shone through her torchlight in the room she just stopped in. The itching worsened but she knew in the cavernous enclosure, one sneeze would give her away. Panicking, she turned to run down a the corridor, still going as she came to a winding staircase.

Cyrus aimed his rifle and peered over his iron sights. The light directed him, but he stopped periodically to hear any noises ahead of behind him in case he had gotten too far ahead of Pola. He tapped his comm. "I thought the point of target practice was for you to shoot me, not me show my tracking skills." He teased lightly. He kept his steps light and allowed the HUD displayed on his head visor to track the dust disturbances for him, allowing him to focus on more important things, like movement in the darkness or the sound of footsteps falling.

He continued to creep slowly down the corridor when he heard the echo of running footsteps further down. She was still a ways ahead of him, which still gave her the advantage.

Pola glanced at the staircase and the corridor ahead, uncertain which way in which she should go. He had a point, it was meant to be target practise. The corridor would give her an opportunity to keep running, perhaps even loose him but the staircase would give her a vantage point to try hit him from above.

Moving forward a few steps more towards the corridor, Pola started to realise that time wasn't on her side. Going back on herself, she started to climb the staircase, hugging the wall incase he appeared early, while she awaited opportunity for the perfect point. Moving her hand to the communicator in her ear, adrenaline was causing her to sound slightly breathless. "Afraid you won't be able to keep up with my sweetheart?"

"Hardly sweetums, just thought I'd remind you. " He smiled and came to an opening with a staircase. He paused for a split second as he analyzed the surrounding area. "Come out come out, wherever you are..." He whispered to himself.

Pola could easily hear the footsteps below her, given her an indication that Cyrus had finally caught up with her. Still hugging the ground, she could see his basic outline through the bannister. Even though she ran the risk of him seeing her, the small gap and height was to her advantage. Holding her breath, she moved down onto her knees as she tried to get a shot but needing him to take one more step.

Cyrus was about to take a step forward before he looked upward to see the winding starcase. That's a vantage point if I ever saw one.... He thought to himself, come to think of it, he hadn't heard any steps besides his own in quite some time, and given the fact that these corridors had echoed so much earlier. She must have either stopped to grab a spot to defend or she's too far down for me to hear.

Cyrus picked the first idea. Assuming she was above him on the ledge meant she would probably have a bead on the doorway, but if that was the case she would have fired... Her angle He knew instantly, wherever she was hunkered down, it must not give a proper vantage point to fire on. Taking a deep breathe and knowing full well he was probably walking into a trap he took his step forward and braced himself. He had to know where she was before he could open fire.

Pola had noticed the hesitancies and the tilt of Cyrus' head. She knew that there was no way in which he could see her but she still had to resist the urge to pull back. Keeping her positioning, her only thought was that one step more and she'd have him in her sights.

As the step came, Pola pulled the trigger on her phaser and watched as the beam hit Cyrus' knee, cursing she pulled back as she tried to figure out how she'd gotten it so wrong.

Cursing loudly he winced as the phaser struck him, but he had been looking up long enough to see where Pola had been hiding. Ignoring the pain he leveled his rifle and shot a flurry of compression bolts into the stairwell and around it, in an attempt to supress her as he began climbing the stairs. He fired in burts of four and five so as to not make the rifle ride up on the kickback, taking steps everytime he was firing. He didn't have unlimited ammunition, the charge on the crystals were still fixed, but he knew they had been at full, he had more than enough to keep her pinned as he advanced.

"Don't stop!" He called out. "You can still fire back!" He launched another salvo of compression bolts as he advanced.

As the rounds, if one could refer to them like that, hit the stone surrounding her, Pola realised that Cyrus couldn't get a clear enough shot. Even though he had pinpointed her location she was too enclosed in. As she heard his footsteps start to thunder up around the staircase, her instinct was to run, an instinct which she followed. Stumbling once or twice on the broken flags of stone, she tried to get out of his range of fire.

As Cyrus' words finally reached Pola's ears, she stumbled once more landed hard on her knee. As he bit down hard on her tongue to prevent a scream, she knew that the injury was going to smart in the morning. As she had impacted the floor, the phaser had fallen out of her grip. Diving forward as a round hit the stone above her head, Pola managed to ignore the pain and aim for the top of the stairs, starting to wildly let off her own fire as he tried to hit, or at lease push back, Cyrus.

The shot came close, as Cyrus ducked down, for a brief moment the hail of bolts had stopped. He knelt by the Stairwell, he could see the stone she dove behind. "Good, don't panic when you see a lot of fire, most times they won't hit you if they are just firing wildly. Don't be afraid to hold a bead for a second." He checked his knee, it smarted, he winced at the slight throbbing. " How are you doing?"

Pola struggled to drag herself to a seated position, better able to fire from the angle it offered her. She could feel the trickle of blood down her knee and the rip in her trousers material but she forced herself to block the pain. Closing her eyes for a moment, she laughed as she considered the irony in this, hitting Cyrus' knee with her phaser and than hurting her own. "I'm good...You?"

"Never been better. You missed the stun shot because you didn't wait long enough. You phaser shot gave you away. You're ambush was good though." He checked his weapon's charge. It was still well charged, but he couldn't send another constant bombardment of phaser fire like he had. "When you're outgunned, the best thing for you to do is make every shot count. Don't be afraid to brace your phaser on anything you can find. Anything to get some more accuracy. "

As she listened to his words, Pola's eyes darted between her current spot and the corridor ahead. She knew that if she tried to make a run for it that Cyrus would have his shot. Looking around she tried to find something to use as a brace but everything seemed too low. Softly banging her head back against the pillar she tried to figure this out, if she went low she was screwed if Cyrus managed to advance forward, she would never be able to get back on her feed quick enough. "Ready to give up yet and admit a girl hit you and therefore beat you?"

He chuckled. "Pretty sure I'm still mobile, and I'm pretty sure the goal was to incapacitate me."

Realising he was waiting for her to make the first move, Pola realised she had only one choice. She needed to at least go down firing or it would defeat the purpose of this experiment. Moving onto her tummy, she flattened her body against the ground before crawling forward to a ledge where she could easily balance her phaser. "Cryus...I've done something to my knee and I can't repair it myself. How about a truce and you give me a hand to get to sickbay?"

Pola knew that she was crap at lying, she couldn't manage it to even try to save her own life, she just had to hope that it would at least lure him out of hiding.

"Your knee..." He felt a sudden urge to run over to her position and help her treat it, He moved up slightly, but he stopped just short of his cover. Hiding his smile with a large frown he peered over the wall to see her balancing her phaser. "I'd love to help you sweetheart, but there is this thing called a phaser that's keeping me from doing that." He chuckled.

What the hell? It's not like I'm supposed to win this one anyways. He thought to himself, it would have been easier to glide up the wall to where she was, the angle she had only covered most, not all of the stairwell. It wouldn't be too much trouble to make his way past. But that wasn't the exercise. He burst up suddenly and began sprinting up the stairs, firing blindly. "How about I help you up?!?!?!" He roared, laughing evilly.

Cursing as she realised that she'd been found out. The last thing she'd expected was an ambush from the other side. Ducking her head as she tried to cover, her finger pulled on the phaser trigger as she balanced her weapon against the support. Blind now to where she was shooting, she just returned Cyrus' fire bombardment with her own, only having hopes and wishes now that she might actually win this.

The phaser bolts whizzed by his head with the a dull hum, one got him in the shoulder, leaving his arm numb, he dropped his rifle and kept charging forward. Another grazed his shoulder, but didn't slow him. He was only a couple of steps before he was level with the desperate doctor.

After moments had passed, Pola slowly become aware of the fact that the only sound was phaser fire. Removing her finger from her trigger, she forced herself to finally open her eyes, a pair of legs in her sight. Tilting her head back slowly, her eyes ran up the man's body until her eyes stared back into his. "Um...hello?"

Cyrus was was barely standing as he stared down at Pola. His breathe was coming out in heavy gasps. "Never....blind...fire.." Is what he managed as he suddenly pitched forward to one knee. Laughing between breathes he looked down at the phaser burn on his chest. " Last one was a good....a good shot though." He managed weakly.

Feeling a strike of fear move through her body, Pola quickly crawled over to Cyrus' side as she cursed her lack of tricorder. Her bleeding knee aching but she ignored the pain as concern for the man almost overwhelmed her. "I'm sorry. Is it bad? Safeties should have ensured that any damage the phaser inflicted was weak. I'm sorry.."

Cyrus grunted, and pointed the hand phaser that he had withdrawn to her chest. "Bang." He managed weakly. Looking at her with a fragile smile on his face as he managed a chuckle. "Though for all intents and purposes I would be dead from that last shot."

Pola couldn't resist it and slapped Cyrus' arm hard. "Based on that confession, I win!" Breaking out in a smile, she placed her hand against the shot in question on his chest, as she rubbed it very gently, tilted her head up for a kiss.

He gave her a quick kiss as he settled into a sitting position. "Don't run so much, it'll screw up your aim when you finally stop. Try to move as quietly as you can. Slower can mean better if they don't hear you. " He instructed. "And never actually blind fire, you got lucky with that last burst, but you would have had me way before then had you aimed properly. "

Twisting her body so she was seated, Pola winced as she looked down at the cut across her knee. "Sorry...last time I fired a weapon was when Klingons tried to get into sickbay and I'd a room full of patients. I guess the thoughts are still lingering with me somewhat."

"it's natural. But having a bead on your opponent is the difference from that. " He gestured to where his rifle had fallen on the stairs. "And this." He finished, gesturing to the distance between the two of them. " He smiled. "Now help the dead man to his feet please. Computer...end program." The room swirled into the yellow and black checkered pattern that all holodecks were based on. "Dont worry too much about me, I'll be fine in a couple of hours when the stun wears off. "

As she stumbled to her feet, Pola took a moment to catch her own breath as the adrenaline rush seemed to seep from her body. Holding out her hand with a smile, she braced herself to help Cyrus to his feet. "So you're going to admit I won..."

He looked at her, laughter in his eyes. "Well, the point was to hit me, and you did hit me..." He smiled.

"But, on the other hand, you didn't incapacitate me...so I'm going to say it's a draw." He gave her a wink. "Besides, I already owe that dog a second round, damned thing cheated."

As she pulled him back onto his feet, Pola placed weight on her bad leg in order to test how painful it would be to walk on it. Figuring she could manage to limp back to her quarters she would be able to fix it there. "I've got some doggie biscuits I could give you in order to lure him into false pretences."

Cyrus grinned evilly. "I knew there was a reason I love you. Let's see that little mongrel try to feint me now." He rubbed his hands together as he looked at Pola. "how's your knee, you going to be alright?" He asked. "Looks like you banged it pretty hard." He limped over himself and knelt down to look at it.

Laughing softly, Pola placed her hand on Cyrus' shoulder as she looked down at the injury. "Nothing a dermal regenerator, a tub of ice cream and some tender loving care from a boyfriend wouldn't heal up."

Grinning, he looked up at her and smiled. "Well then, let's get you patched up then ma'am."

Laughing lightly, Pola helped Cyrus to his feet before they helped each other from the holodeck, both realising that the other was probable in as much need of medical attention as they other but focused instead on getting to Pola's quarters to rest after the excursion.

OFF:

Lieutenant Commander Pola Ni Dhuinn
Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

CWO Kiwosk
Security/Tactical Officer
MMA, TRT Leader
USS Galileo

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