Pooling Thoughts

Posted on Tue Jan 22nd, 2019 @ 5:19am by Lieutenant Danica Kovitz

Mission: Season 2: Episode 3: Determination is not always a good thing
Location: Pool
2157 words - 4.3 OF Standard Post Measure

Despite the crisis, Justin had been told not to neglect his physical exercise routine. He wasn’t usually one for just working out, preferring to play active games instead. But as it was, here he was in the pool, swimming his laps. True to form, he wore flashy red and gold swimming trunks of the small European variety, rather than the unwieldy and baggy ones popular elsewhere. Since most people seemed to be too busy with the mission, he thought he had the place to himself, and had loud music on the comms, an instrumental piece, strong percussions with a violin lead and cello accompaniment.

Danica was a bit surprised upon entering the pool to find such loud music playing. She’d expected to find the place near deserted, hoping going for a swim would clear her mind and help her focus. She felt like the mystery of the planet below was familiar somehow, but couldn’t put a finger on it. Her intention had been to swim a copious amount of laps, using the repetitive nature of the exercise to spark some thought. But she hadn’t stumbled upon an empty room. There was a man already present, making some rounds himself.

Dani was certain he hadn’t heard her entry, based on the volume of the music, so she set her bag down and removed her sweats, revealing her one piece suit, black with a teal and blue design. It wasn’t her usual lounging wear, which would be a bit more revealing. Instead, she’d opted for a competition style suit, slim with little room for drag.

She retrieved her goggles before entering the pool tentatively. She wanted to warn him that she was here before she startled him. “Hey!” She tried to yell over the music.

When Justin heard the voice, he ordered the computer to turn the volume down. He enjoyed loud music but not in a social setting, even one-on-one. “Hey, good evening, Lieutenant”, he greeted. Of course he knew who she was, having spent a lot of time on the bridge lately. “Sorry about the music, I wanted a rhythm for my exercises. I’m Justin Case, just in case you didn’t know already.”

It took a moment for Danica to really process the sentence he’d just said, figuring out which part was and wasn’t his name. “Nice to meet you, Justin. You can call me Danica, or Dani for short.” She worked her way into the water, getting noticeably more tense as it reached the level of her stomach. “And the music is fine. I’m here to do some thinking, myself. I’ve found sometimes the repetition of the laps is just what I need.” She set her goggles down on the side and turned to face him as she tied her hair back into a bun. “What brings you here?”

“Physical therapy, of sorts”, Justin said. “It’s either in the water, or something in zero-gee, which I really don’t fancy. I’ve got to work these muscles to keep them, no?” He flashed a bright smile. “I usually do more terrestrial stuff but I have to wait for my new leg.” He didn’t feel like telling her the whole story. He was glad most of the others already knew, since it had happened while they had already been part of the crew, so nobody asked him any questions, aside from how he felt and if they could help, which he really didn’t think he needed. “Duck says a few months, so I swim.”

New legs were apparently a trend on Elysium, Dani thought to herself. She’d pushed for a bit more information from Anya, but they had established a very different level of trust by that point, so she decided to let it go. “Swimming’s a good choice I think,” she smiled. “You can get a bit more strength building out of this than you can from zero-g. Plus I just find it relaxing. I just zone out and keep moving.” She played with her goggles though she didn’t put them on. “You’re in Operations, right?”

“Aye, been on bridge duty for the most part these past few days, on account of not being much use down on the planet”, Justin said, turning on his back and exercising his legs, or what was left of one, using his arms only to keep him on course, which he had by that point perfected. It worked, though it didn’t by any stretch of the imagination look elegant. “Sensor scans, mostly, which means calibration after calibration… I’ve still not figured out how we can compensate for all that interference, or what’s causing it.” At least nobody else had either, so he didn’t feel too stupid.

She laughed. “Unfortunately, I think a good number of those sensor scans have been me. I’ve been hoping to come to the bridge, but our lab work has me stuck running an endless stream of simulations. I don’t feel much closer to figuring out what’s caused all this. I think we’re going to need to actually just get down there and look.” She watched him swim. It wasn’t exactly a smooth exercise but it was a lot better than she thought she could do in that situation.

“Down where, though?” Justin wondered. “What’s the source? It’s somewhere inside the planet but if we have to dig for it by hand, or by phaser, it could be months.” Especially if they wanted to make sure that those involved would not be buried under rockfalls or hurt in similar accidents, and that was sort of important, wasn’t it? “I’ve looked at the records from the early colonisation, anomalies during terraforming, signs of previous occupation by another species… I found nothing.”

“That’s the same question plaguing us,” she said, opting to swim breaststroke and keep her head above the water for the moment. “I’ve been trying to find a specific location that could be causing the issues. I’ve yet to narrow it down much. It doesn’t appear to be coming from the poles. That’s about all I’ve established.”

“It’s got to be somewhere below the surface, near the population centres”, Justin said. “Otherwise, those areas would not be the worst affected. And those tunnels, it’s hard to believe they’re a coincidence. But how far do they extend, how big are they?” He hadn’t seen them with his own eyes, an all he had heard in reports was the word tunnels, and they they extended for an unknown number of kilometres beneath Cortic, the colony’s capital.

“I’m afraid I might need to answer those questions in person,” Dani said with a laugh, pushing off of the wall and heading toward the middle of the pool. She’d thought about what could be in the tunnels for a while. Instead, she changed the topic to something a bit more social. “So where are you usually at when you’re not on the bridge or here in the pool.”

“Oh, me? The simulator, playing games or flying. Or both at the same time. I love flying anything from gliders to starfighters. There are some games where you delve into a fictional universe where starfighters are relevant because big ships haven’t got shields, or at least not particularly strong ones. It’s like the time of the aircraft carriers, only in space with much more nimble craft, and fancier designs”, Justin said, nerding out fully on one of his favourite things. “It’s great serving on a big ship, you can always find someone to do something with, who shares your interests.”

Dani laughed. “Could you imagine not having shields on this thing though? That’d be a nightmare. But I agree, it is nice. I’ve been on a few small ships before this. Can’t argue that it’s a lot nicer having access to Elysium’s amenities. This pool for example.”

“Oh, it would change tactics a lot”, Justin admitted. “We’d have to move faster, stay further away, anticipate enemy movement. Lots of scattering fire from dozens of batteries. It’s fun for a game but I wouldn’t want it for real.” He reached the end of the pool and turned around, to avoid hitting his head. “And yes, this pool is nice, especially this time of night.” It was sort of obvious. Smalltalk. “There are a lot of fun things. I make liberal use of the holoemitters. My roommate hates it, though. Says it’s annoying to have the room look different every day.”

Danica laughed pretty heartily at that. “Ship wide holoemitters have been a surprise for me too. We only had a single small holodeck on my last ship. Having them everywhere has been...a bit wild honestly. I took a shower with actual water! And countless other little hijinks at this point. Hell, I’m still getting used to having such ready access to power that I don’t need to keep uniforms at the ready.”

“We got caught with partial power on our last run”, Justin said. “My roommate got caught out with nothing to wear, had to borrow some of my stuff. Did not fit her at all, she looked very awkward.” He always had something on hand. But he was a man of contingencies and failsafe plans, just in case.

“I might need to have a few spares ready then,” Dani said picturing what her situation would have been if that had happened to her in her solo quarters. Not great to say the least. She might need to consider having a spare prepped for Anya too...if that wouldn’t weird the woman out. “I wouldn’t exactly want to be caught in that situation. And given that I don’t have a lot of belongings to my name, it might be a good idea to have some off duty stuff prepped too. Do you run on partial power often?”

“No, only occasionally”, Justin said. “Short time outages when we need power for the shields or an extra boost to the engines, but then who needs the luxuries during those times? Our engineers are handy with their quick fixes, never stays down for long. But I believe in preparedness.”

“That’s a good point. I can’t imagine being in a situation where I desperately need one of those luxuries if we’re being shot at.” Danica switched to backstroke, moving along in the water smoothly while keeping her face up. Something was at the back of her mind and it took her a minute to retrieve the information. “So are you the guy who likes planetary sciences and stuff? I feel like I remember Estelle telling me about that.”

“Yeah, I do”, Justin replied, surprised that this was being talked about. “Geology, ecology, how life shapes a planet. I read up on the latest dis…” he stopped himself. He would not use such a dirty word with a lady. “The latest papers, and see if I can find evidence of it when I look at our scans of planets.”

“Well you’ll need to swing by our labs sometime. We have some of the most advanced equipment I’ve ever seen. And hanging around lab equipment is sorta my job,” Claire said with a smile. “And stellar cartography is pretty fun too.”

“Is that an invitation?” Justin wondered. “I’d love to play around with your toys.”

“It’s contingent upon good behavior,” Danica said with a laugh. “I can’t have you wrecking the place. Otherwise, I’ll be the one stuck cleaning it all up.”

“I’m a qualified sensor operator”, Justin smiled. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that. Good behaviour, well, mostly good is okay, no?”

“I think mostly good works. We still know how to have fun in the science division!” She pushed off from the wall headed in the opposite direction.

From across the pool, the small but insistent chirp of Danica’s combadge echoed. She stopped midstroke, popping straight up to make sure she heard it. Sure enough, a second chirp issued moments later. “Ah. Duty calls. Sounds like one of my tests is done. I’d better go see if I finally cracked this case.” She swam her way over to a ladder, pulling herself up the rungs and onto the deck.

Justin appreciated the view of Danica climbing out of the pool. “If there’s anything you need from operations, let me know. We’re wizards with logistics.”

“I’ll make sure to do so,” she said, drying off and throwing her sweats back on. She’d need to head home and change first. “Catch you around, Justin.”