Boffer Belt

Posted on Mon Dec 30th, 2019 @ 8:53am by Ensign Briaar Gavarus & Ensign Fiona O'Dell & Petty Officer 3rd Class S'Rina Wil'I'Ams
Edited on on Tue Dec 31st, 2019 @ 11:43am

Mission: Neutral Zone Neutrality
Location: USS Hera, Deck 14, Family quarters
Timeline: 2396

"I've got it!"

Cracking open one beer then another in rapid succession, O'Dell tossed a beer to Gavarus, who caught it neatly and had it in her mouth as the suds came churning out, sucking away the foam. Vaulting over the arm of the couch against the rear wall of their new, much more spacious family quarters, the petite pilot landed squarely on her ass in a comfortable pose. Raising her beer, Fiona made a pronouncement.

"So, this belt," Fiona paused to take a wee girly sip of her beer. "All it really needs to be is a personal inertial dampener. Everything she reaches for, everything she charges at, it'll just make her like a greet big marshmallow a' dampening field, so she's far less likely ta hurt inny thing. We could try turnin it inward to try ta overcome her strength, but that'll just be like cripplin her for a few years, then she'd be s'strong when we turned it off she'd ha na fine control. So I think that's a turribul idea. Boot the boffer belt, aye? Ehhhh?"

"Okay, okay, okay, so check this out!" The portly porcine said excitedly as she leaned over the arm of the couch facing her unlikely life partner, beer in hand, "So, yeah. It's an inertia dampener, but it's kinetically activated. I've got the sensor rig almost completely worked out so that if she's just walking around or touching things normal, nothing. UNTIL Minnie starts moving faster OR something's moving fast towards her, then the field should activate and match it's field strength inversely against the incoming input."

"Ah, that's bloody brilliant that is. Ye g'win ta offer these to the Flyin' Doxes when their brood take to the air too?" the lightweight drinker, the original 90-pound weakling, was clad in a 'Saint Ognrfltrtz Day' t-shirt, showcasing the face of a Lovecraftian horror wearing a green derby hat with a four-leaf clover sticking out of the brim, and a pair of black bike shorts that came down to her knees, and somehow managed to be baggy on her.

Crawling over the arm of the couch, Briaar grunted as she flumped upside down next to Fiona, amazingly not spilling a drop of her beer. Around them in the room were a number of boxes with their various possessions, still unpacked from the move while their adopted Minotaur babe slept soundly in her nigh-indestructible crib in her own room for the first time. Across from the couch, Briaar's fluffy white Tribble, Cueball cooed in it's colored, plastic habitrail. "Yeah. I figure if her lil' nuggets are really gonna have hollow frickin' bones, then we can refine the tech before they're finished baking."

"There's just... Uh... oooooooonne problem." The Portly Porcine looked up at the miniature Mariposian and fluttered her eyelids in an exaggerated fashion, smiling with a toothy grin.

"Ye make that face when ye've brought home a bottle of whiskey. What? What're ye grinnin aboot like a cat who ate a canary- oh hell, that's Dox and Mona, ennit?" O'Dell chuckled at her own joke as she nursed her beer with another small sip.

Pressing her rather large head up against Fiona's side softly, Briar was hemming around what she needed to say a bit nervously and was clearly trying to soften Fiona up to it as she cleared her throat. "AHEM... Okay, well... the prototype is using a subspace relay like the ones in our comm badges to draw it's power from the ship's grid right now. I'll get something worked out for portable applications, I'm sure, but I've... uh... I've completed the initial holographic testing phase."

"So far, so good. There are no more energy feedback issues and the field strength is now variable so it can let oxygen through and shit... but..." The Tellarite engineer knitted her eyebrows slightly, "But it's going to need to be... thoroughly tested out on an actual... person before it's cleared for use. It needs... well... a test pilot."

“Yuir workin’ awfully hard ta try to talk me into doin’ what I do for a livin innyways, porkchop,” O’Dell wisecracked, testing out a pet name for her ham hock housemate. “So what’s the catch, aye? What’s the bad news of this particular testing regiment? Ye need me to test it in a diaper or soomesuch?”

Raising and eyebrow and smiling warmly at the adorable use of 'porkchop', Briaar chuckled a bit, which shook the couch slightly. "Well, you might WANT one. I mean... it's not like you'll be in any kind of ship or anything. It'll just be... you and a completely invisible force field."

"And... uh... me. Trying to make sure it won't fail." The rotund engineer dragged herself with a grunt to a seated position and shrugged as she took a long swig of her beer. "Ya' know... aggressively. Which... I'm frankly not sure I could even bring myself to do. Plus, like I said, I've got the sensor rig almost... note the emphasis... worked out. We will need to dial it in to make sure you're not getting any feedback in this rig. I'm... nervous. It's not like you'll have a cockpit between you and whatever we're... hitting, you with."

“Wahhhhhhl, could I wear me EVA armor, me flight suit? That’s pprotect me from most stoof, aye? Or that would skew the test results, because Minnie wouldn’t be wearin’ one…. Aye, okay, NOW I get why yuir tryin’ ta butter me oop.” Taking another small sip of beer, O’Dell lay back against the prodigious protruding paunch of her porcine partner. “Alreet, so we joost need fuir me ta be endangered, by runnin’ at stoof and having stoof thrown at me. We could get one of the Klingons? They’re allays ready to hit something. That likely won’t traumatize me near as much as havin the L-C come after me.”

"That would traumatize you, ME and probably the Lou too. I mean, she's tryin' t' NOT freak us out anymore. Murderpunching you on PURPOSE wouldn't be fair to her either." Then Briaar took another swig, finishing off her beer with ease.

"And... Honestly... I can't." She said, leaning in closer. "I know it's my own tech and I trust it or we wouldn't even be talking about it... But I just thought about having to do that and I started freaking out. So, yeah. Maybe one of the Klingon chicks would volunteer to help."

"Aye," the picayune pilot of peril turned on her side a bit, laying her cascade of crimson curls on the bristly-haired leg of the thick Tellarite. Bringing up her hand, the brave little test pilot patted her partner's thigh and snuggled against her before taking another small sip of her beer. "S'nice ye dinna want ta hurt me. It's sweet, an'... tis part'a why m'with ye, I suppose. Wi'you, I always feel safe, y'ken?"

"Ah'll joost hafta make sure that Klingon gel understands what a 'safe word' means..."

-----------------

Stepping into the ring, O'Dell was clad in oversized bright white running shoes, a black pair of bike shorts that somehow hung loose off her toothpick frame, and a bright red t-shirt style athletic shirt. Her thick and curly mane of hair had been drawn back into two poofy pom tails behind and to the side of her head, which made her freckled face look that much more juvenile. Experimentally flexing the boxing gloves she was wearing, Fiona O'Dell looked to all the world like she was fine and excited for testing. Joking, jovial and patient as the sensors in the gloves and boots were calibrated.

The Klingon Security officer assigned for this particular duty- volunteered, to be precise- was Petty Officer S'Rina. The opportunity to cut loose and try to do some damage to an opponent was appealing to her, to put it mildly. The fact that it was the puny pilot was of no consequence. S'Rina saw her in the gym most mornings training for endurance and struggling to lift what weights she could. The gimpy girl gave an effort to better herself, and persisted- that, the warrior could respect.

Although she was still going to see just HOW miraculous this portable forcefield belt worked, she thought as she pummelled a heavy bag, waiting for the test to begin.

Setting up a portable computer station around one of the ringside benches, Briaar was nervously connecting a series of leads from an array of specialized Tricorders and monitors as she muttered to herself. "Okay... got the leads in... Signal strength is at 98 point... No, the power curve should... AHHH, frickin' duh. Okay. Okay. Good."

The towering Tellarite engineer was clearly anxious and was trying... and failing... to conceal it as she got up and carried a silver metal case over to Fiona in the ring. Opening it up, she pulled out an inch thick black belt with a series of black metal rectangles affixed around the entirety of it. In the front was a fairly large, gray metal buckle with a small LcARS display on it. "Okay, Fee... Uh... Here, put your arms up. I need to get this on and calibrated to your proportions. All this shit will be padded in that same coating we used on Minnie's crib so it'll be safe."

"Briaar, relax," Fiona whispered, hoping the Klingon hearing wasn't as acute as Romulan hearing. "Tis yuir invention so I hae faith in it, joost as I have in ye. Besides, this is an experiment, not a prizefight. She's nae g'win ta hurt me, she's just here to test the effectiveness. And I'm doin' it for Minnie, so we kin be sure tis safe for her, so relax. Tis part of the risk of bein' a test pilot, aye? I'll be fine."

At that, S'Rina laid three punishing kicks in quick succession to the bag, all of which not only moved the bag but made sharp thwacking sounds

"Aye," the brave little test pilot swallowed a lump in her throat. "Fine... so, eh, how will Ah know tis powered oop...?"

Clicking the belt into place, Briar locked the control panel down and punched in a code with her thick, three-fingered hand. As she did, there was a slight humming sound that quickly vanished. But in that moment, there was a mild flash from the belt that moved across Fiona's form before becoming invisible and she felt the hairs on her arms stand up. 

Looking at her life-partner, Briaar Gavarus smiled and blushed lightly as the two poofs of red hair out of the sides of the pint-sized pilot's head began to stand up and friz out. "Uh... that will happen. It will subside in a second."

"Wot?" Feeling the poms on the top of her head bouncing near weightlessly with the static buildup within the field as it activated, O'Dell bounced about a bit. "Git me a mirror, aye?"

As Gavarus pulled out her pocket PaDD, she quickly spun through the options to forward sensor display. Holding it out to O'Dell, the small stunt pilot squealed in delighted surprise.

"THAT'S BLOODY BRILLIANT! Kin ye yae a setting fuir that, cuz it could revolutionize frizzy hairdos, that!" Grinning and watching her reflection in the face of the tablet, the pipsqueak pilot stepped forward into the ring, only to bounce off Petty Officer S'Rina's taut brown abs.

"GYAH! Fooksake, ye tryin ta be the death a'me, woman? Jayzis christ on pogo stick," O'Dell clutched at her bird chest as she spoke, playing up the fright as the Klingon warrior looked down at her somewhat predatorily.

"I am wearing the boots and gloves with the sensors, so they should dull my blows. We will spar- quarter speed, then half-speed, then full speed. I will try not to hurt you. You are welcome to attack me." The last statement she accompanied with a toothy smile, which O'Dell realized wasn't a friendly expression, but the baring of teeth to show just how dangerous one is in the wild.

Gulping, O'Dell pointed to the large and muscular woman with the oversized boxing glove- well, at least to her- that she was wearing. "Ye ken the meanin' of a safe word, aye? I say the word, ye back offa me?"

The toothy grin slowly morphed into a somewhat sly version. "Yes, Ensign O'Dell. I am well acquainted with the meaning and use of a 'safe word'."

Both Gavarus and O'Dell exchanged looks, as they would in a bar hearing some gossip. Both nodded in unison, then O'Dell turned back to the rather imposing Klingon in the yellow and black Security workout uniform. As S'Rina cocked an eyebrow, the picayune pilot did a double-take, then narrowed her eyes with suspicion. "Me safe word's 'marshmallow'. Alreet, we ready to test this rig oot?"

"I was born ready," Petty Officer S'Rina slid easily into an intimidating combat stance, to which O'Dellwaved, turning back to Gavarus.

"So it does work, aye? Otherwise, at quarter speed, I think she might still knock me head off'n me body," the mostly fearless test pilot asked her engineer.

"Yeah, it's working... hence your bounce off of her a second ago." Briaar said, making some final adjustments. "Ideally, you'll feel the impacts, but the field should absorb and redistribute the kinetic force outward. It will reduce any whiplash or concussive force significantly, but not so much that you're unaware of the contact."

Standing back up, the tall Tellarite rubbed the back of her neck nervously as she fidgeted in place, not wanting to embarrass Fiona with a hug, but wanting to do so regardless. "So, uh... I'll be monitoring all your vitals, but audible feedback will be vital to making sure you're okay. And if I have to, the belt has the equivalency of a manual full force for emergencies. Basically, an insta-bubble that nothing is getting through if I hit the button."

Holding out her glove for a fist bump, Fiona O'Dell grinned like a carefree daredevil. "Well then that's all I need ta know. Maybe work a strain sensor into it that cranks oop the field as pressure increases on it, aye?"

"Oooh, yeah. T-that's a good idea. That's going in the revision notes for sure." Briaar stammered with an awkward grin on her face as she looked down at Fiona, over to S'Rina, then back to Fiona. "Okay... I'll be monitoring. The safeword is 'Marshmallow'. We're good to go. Okay... it's all you."

Going over to the bench with the workstation set up around it, the anxious engineer sat down checked the readings and gave a thumbs up.

“Wahhhhl, me and this great musclebound menace right here,” Fiona joked as a foot came at her head with slow deliberation, connecting slowly but firmly with her carrot-top curls. Rather than striking with sudden and deliberate force, the quarter-speed strike was blunted that much more by the field, which essentially just nudged the little pilot to the side. Shaking it off and blinking in surprise at the sudden attack, O’Dell hadn’t quite registered it when a pair of rapid kicks were coming in at her midsection.

Again, they merely pushed her back, with no actual damage to the Bringloidian babe. As a punch came at her face, she raised her gloved and winced, but as the blow landed on her forearms it was slowed down further, the impact fully blunted. Peeking back out from behind her very basic guard, O’Dell didn’t anticipate the sweeping leg coming her way, and it dropped her to the mat with a light thud. While the belt was not negating the effects of gravity on her, it did still blunt the impact of her 90-pound body weight hitting the canvas.

Rolling backward, the feisty fighter came back up onto her feet, raising her dukes to actually fight. “Alreet ye great beastie, let’s see-“ O’Dell managed before she was hit in the face by three successive short punches, from which she rebounded once more, ending up in the corner of the ring. “M’Still okay- it works! She’s pooshin me aboot but she’s nae hurtin’ me!”

Flumping back with a sigh, Briar felt suddenly a hundred kilograms lighter in that instant, hearing her chirpy partner maintaining her energetic and happy tone in the face of, without the belt, would have been a brutal beating, proportionality. Checking the vitals on one screen and the power curve readings on another, the Engineer nodded and held a hand up, making a swirling up motion with her finger. 

"Okay! This is fantastic. Vitals barely look like your even walking fast, aside from the obvious momentary bp hops that come with you anticipating the impacts, but that's nothing more intense then if I'd just goosed you. And the belt readings are steady and constant. No unusual power drains or anything out of the ordinary so far. Ramp it up whenever you're ready, Fee."

“I’m nae the one to-“ O’Dell replied as the Klingon warrior grabbed her by the shoulders and tumbled backward, to hurl O’Dell over her body to pancake flat onto the mat. A frightened squeak escaped the little lass, but again, she rolled back to her feet, unharmed.

“That was greet! I dinna even get the wind knocked oota-“ she managed before she was suddenly being pummeled by snap kicks, as the security officer stepped up her game, moving to half-speed attacks and beginning to put more power behind them as well as frequency. As for the tiny test pilot, she just kept up her guard and tried to weather the storm of blows. She was feeling the impacts, but they didn’t hurt- instead they just felt like taps on her body as the blows landed on her forearms, her ribs and her waist.

“Still nothing?” the muscular fighter asked as she swung a backhand knuckle strike in the pushed the smaller woman halfway across the ring. “You are as yet uninjured, Ensign?”

“Aye, this thing works bluiddy great! S’amazing!” O’Dell replied jubilantly. Which was when Petty Officer S’Rina stepped up with a growl and an attack at full-strength and speed. The right cross she drove across the leprechaun’s jaw sprayed blood and spittle out the side of the little lass’ face as she spun around and hit the deck.

Looking stricken, the Klingon blanched and immediately rushed to the side of her opponent, who planted her arms on the canvas and struggled to rise. “Ensign O’Dell, are you…?”

“M’alreet,” Fiona O’Dell muttered. "S’joost a scratch, I kin… I... kin…” Trying to rise, the world refused to stop spinning and O’Dell collapsed to the floor of the ring once more.

"FEE!!! Briaar screamed across the gym in panic as the blood rushed from her face. There was no warning that the field would fail, but fail it did, letting one of S'Rina's strongest blows through. The sensors registered that the blow was still reduced in power down significantly, but it was still enough to overwhelm the dampening effects. 

But the porcine engineer wasn't paying any attention to readouts as she launched to her hooves, upending the entire table of equipment as she stomped across the floor to the mat where O'Dell had fallen. "GET THE F*** AWAY FROM HER!!!" she screamed, not caring in the slightest that she was yelling at a Klingon warrior as tears began to streak her cheeks.

Sliding to the mat on her knees, she gently put her hands on Fiona's shoulders. She touched her partner delicately, as one would the most fragile china plate, terrified. "FEE!!! Ohmygod! I... I don't know how that HAPPENED! I don't... Ohmygods!!! Ohmygods, I'm so sorry!!! I can't!!! I didn't!!!"

"Sickbay! Someone call sickbay!!" The Tellarite Engineer cried out as she panicked.

"Calm.... calm your teats, Briaaaar..." O'Dell mumbled woozily. "S'alreet, she dinna hit me that..." O'Dell tried to sit up, failed and as the world spun around her she passed out again.

"Petty Officer S'Rina to Sickbay, two to beam, site to site, concussion injury," the dark-skinned thickly muscled petty officer growled, maintaining her distance from the pair. She understood the instinct, and she understood the response. At this point, while she was disturbed that her first full-strength blow had penetrated the field, she was more concerned about the fragile test pilot. Also grateful that her partner had not attempted to attack her in response, as that would have only exacerbated the situation. As the duo disappeared in a shimmering column of blue light, she tapped her comm badge again. She was angry at the situation and frustrated- she had not meant to hurt the little humanoid, and the unsuccessful test had emotions churning within her that required release.

"S'Rina to V'Nus. Please report to Gymnasium One on the double. I require a sparring partner..."