Sitting Cross Legged...

Posted on Sat Dec 18th, 2021 @ 7:24am by Commander Dean House & Lieutenant Commander Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Durnell

Mission: *CD*
Location: Targeting Range
Timeline: IDK yet

Bonnie was sitting cross-legged on the foot of the floor, filing away her reports from the day before. Above her, her prized targeting orb spun and fired flawlessly at the targets as they appeared on the range walls. The system was on level eighteen and the orb was hitting every single shot because it was programmed that way. She engrossed herself in the PADDs laid out on the floor before her. Never one to shy from paperwork, she found a simplistic order in making sure every number, character, and dot was in the right location.

Recently she had overseen the upgrades to the CORE and repairs after their jaunt into the Gamma and subsequent battle with both the Dominion and their Cardassian counterparts. Even though her job really wasn't a leadership role, she had stepped up and delegated the repair work. It wasn't as though she wanted to lead, more that she just cared so much that she didn't want others to control that which she worked on a daily basis. The CORE was her lifeblood.

Half the PADDs contained information that was CORE-related, the others, and the ones she was currently focused on pertaining to the Transwarp Drive experiment and the simulation trials she had been conducting. So far her trials had produced an approximate 49-51% chance the ship would implode, which needless to say, were not great odds. Unable to find a comfortable place to work without interruption, she had scheduled the target practice room for an hour. If anyone checked on the door, they would hear phaser fire, and if they checked the score they would find an adept officer training hard. A rather perfect ploy, that is until the wrong Pretty Boy entered without notice...

Which he was usually too good at doing. Then again, that was kind of a given as well. They had discussed doing that, as well as him helping her with close-quarters combat. Didn't expect her to be in there when he was going to come to practice. Either way though, they could knock out two birds with one stone. "Didn't we have a date for this?" finally making his presence known.

She turned at the sound of his voice, her heart skipping a beat. She had been so focused. she had not heard the doors open, but his voice caused her to jump. "Computer pause program."" She spoke and the computer obeyed. With no targets, her orb also stopped firing as it was programmed to do. Then Bonnie eyed Dean, "I don't know about a date. I remember asking if you would help me with the simulations," she rolled her eyes. "Which are going smashingly I think." Her sarcasm rolled off her tongue.

"Focused are we?" Tilting his head a little bit, also giving a bit of a smirk. "Could be a date. Also, date is a relative term after all." Moving over more to her. "What are you currently working on? I also meant as well as we did discuss training. Should we just work on this first?"

Taken aback a little, Bonnie answered, "I, um, I , yeah. I was multi-tasking actually. Mostly I was trying to understand the simulation we've run so far on the Transwarp drive. I wish Avarak could lend his mind to the project, but he's been busy of late. The fail rate is way too high." She looked at her orb still floating above her. "Oh and I was practicing getting the high score." She was too ashamed to admit the orb existed to shoot for her because she was a lousy shot.

"How is that shooting going for you?" Dean moved to look at one of the latest simulations and just let it run on the monitor instead of the whole holodeck, just to look. See what maybe the data might show up with. It wasn't his baby. Was theirs but he did help a little before so why not some input.

"Not to brag, but I'm at a level eighteen. I'm sure not many can say that." She said as she handed him some of her latest results of the simulations. She knew this wasn't her personal setting but the setting her orb was at, though she was pushing it further each time. "As for the stats, I've done all I can do for now. Until we see some real numbers there is nothing more I can tweak."

His head tilted but didn't mention anything about the level. Taking it and giving it a look over. "Hmm..what about that." Giving a point. "See here, the tri-quantum waves, subspace disruptions. The field magnitude of at least 2.9 tera-cochranes, and a highly-symmetric power-utilization curve. You have it at 2.3."

She rolled his eyes, bless his tactical heart for trying, "Well, yeah, 2.05 was too little and at 2.5 this happens." She said as she showed a video of the ship repeatedly imploding. "So, yeah, 2.3 seemed to be a bit of a sweet spot." She shifted and picked up another PADD, "As for the subspace disruptions, I've tried accounting for every known variable, even some hypothetical variables. We simply don't know even yet about subspace to formulate a working theorum." The disappointment and frustration were evident in her voice.

"You really like rolling your eyes at people, you noticed that?" Reaching up to give his nose a little scratch a moment. "Well that's not good to have happen." Taking a breath a moment, "I might know someone who does." Reaching to rub her back gently for a moment, hearing that in her voice. "It'll be alright, it will get figured out. Why don't we put that on pause for a little bit and do that shooting, it'll help you take out some frustration."

"I do not." She lied as she pondered whether or not she truly rolled her eyes often. She was going to respond 'who' when she felt his hand rubbing her back sending her into a state of flight or fight. They were not that close, were they? She questioned before a thousand strange thoughts flooded her mind. She and Anna, she and Sapphire, she and Cody, not that Cody meant much but he had used her. They each had their attributes, their endearing qualities. They were no different than Dean.

She bit her lip and then pulled away from his touch in a deliberate movement to clean up the PADDs strewn about the floor. "I... I'm not sure you want me to shoot a phaser with anyone in the same room. I'm what some would call accident prone." Her voice shook nervously. What was she afraid of?

It's not like he could read minds, so he didn't know unless she asked and opened up. There were things one could pick out, particularly if they were trained to. Not that right now he was really doing, to be honest. Except for one thing, the touch, which was supposed to be supportive and innocent enough. It was easy to feel the sudden tension in her back and muscles.

"You kind of are," Dean grinned, the accident-prone part. "But it doesn't matter. We can still work on fixing that. Besides. Even if you intentionally shoot me, it's the holodeck, it won't do anything. That was a joke. Come on, it might help, really. You can practice some, I can show you some ways if I notice what needs some help. Hell, maybe the mind-clearing will help give you an epiphany."

PADDs all stacked, she paused to give it some thought. Maybe he was right. It wouldn't hurt anything really to try new things, to better ones self. She nodded in agreement as she spoke, "You're right. It couldn't hurt to try, though don't say I didn't warn you. The last time two times I fired a phaser I shot someone. The odds are not in your favor." PADDs in hand, she uncoupled her legs and rolled into a standing position without using her hands, strangely flawlessly.

There was a raised eyebrow given, considering the previous statement when she just rolled up and stood free-handed. Though he had a good idea why she could do that. Not speaking of it though, "I'm sure I'll be fine."

She quickly filed the PADDs into the system file storage, grabbed a targeting phaser and moved over to join him. "Alright, but it's your funeral. Where do you want me?" She asked, leaving the open-ended question out there for him to take hold of.

TBC