Spar-Dee-Har-Har

Posted on Sat Mar 30th, 2019 @ 10:05pm by Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox & Lieutenant Samuel Clemens XV

Mission: Detours
Location: Holodeck One, USS Hera
Timeline: 2366

Striding into the Holodeck, Lieutenant Mnhei'sahe Dox wore a a simple black sweatsuit. As always, she had a PaDD in hand and was reviewing a data file as she walked into the empty, yellow gridded black room. On the PaDD was the technical specifications of the cyborg enhancements performed on the Hera's Chief Intelligence Officer, Lieutenant Samuel Clemens XV.

As she walked in, without looking up from her PaDD, Dox called out to the computer. "Computer, please initiate sparring room program 7-b. Maximum safety protocols. Thank you."

With a chirp, the computer replied in the somewhat unusual way it tended to. =^=You're welcome, Lieutenant Dox.=^=

As it spoke, the Holodeck shimmered to life, creating a room, padded thickly from floor to ceiling with a dark teal material. Against the wall was a refreshment station and two chairs. On a table, a water cooler with cups and a few folded towels that we're replicated into existence. As Dox continued to read, she began taking off her sweat suit. Beneath the sweats was the shiney black bodysuit that was the undersuit for her EVA armor.

Considering that according to the report, Lieutenant Clemens was now approximately ten times stronger then she was, she could use all the help she could get. The EVA armor increased one's strength by a factor of four and offered considerable protection, which would at least keep her from getting too badly tossed around, she hoped.

It was just after Lieutenant Commander Thex's bonding ceremony, during the reception that the tall, thickly built ginger with the large mustache approached her. Clemens had been severely injured during the mission to the worldship and had been in recovery for weeks. Asa had told her some of the details that included the report in her hands and that Clemens had met Death as a result of how bad his recovery almost went. But he was back on duty and trying to get caught up on what was happening on the Hera.

Socially, the two had never spoken, only sharing Bridge duty a sparse few times since Dox joined the Hera. But he had apparently read up on Dox's time training the new security crew in the Rihannsu martial art of Llaekh-ae'rl, in which she was highly adept. So it was at the party that he asked her if she would be willing to set aside some time for lessons.

He asked in the thick accent of his that Dox didn't recognize and could barely make out. She was a little embarrassed that she could speak four languages and was having trouble getting through a simple human accent, and her knee jerk tendency towards being anti-social had her putting it off for a couple of weeks.

Then came the mission to communicate with the Titan Gaia, using Dox's mind as a conduit where, out of nowhere, Clemens voulenteered his mind to assist in strengthening Dox's. Suddenly, the idea of getting together to spar seemed much simplier. After all, the two had been in each other's minds for a time and it was something that had built up enough trust to push through Dox's anxious defenses. As she read, the door behind her wooshed open as Lieutenant Clemens entered the Holodeck.

The ship's solitary spook came in, wearing a tactical night-ops get-up, form-fitting and jet-black, but with little pockets seemingly-everywhere, a white towel over his shoulder, a duffel slung over his other shoulder.

"Howdy!" he said brightly, as he set the duffel down, smiling that brilliant smile of his, a stark contrast to the night-stalking clothing he was wearing.

Turning to greet him, Dox looked up as he was easily 8 inches or so taller then she was. "Hello Lieutenant Clemens. I hope all is well with you." She stood not quite at attention, but alertly with her arms crossed behind her back still holding her PaDD.

"Ah'm glad yuh takin' th'time tuh help me out with this, Miss Dawks," the accent was a bit more muted, but still unmistakably-provincial Earth. "Realleh lookin' foahwhud t'larnin' from yuh."

He looked up, and called out to the air, "Miss Computuh, ah sure do 'preciate yoah fine workmanship on this heah sparrin' room. Thank yuh."

=^=You're welcome, Lieutenant Clemens.=^= The computer replied. It was an affectation that Dox had never seen before in her time with Starfleet, but the computer responding to pleasantries was something she was becoming accustomed to as she smiled. She had a habit of anthropomorphizing ships, and this just made her love her home that much more.

Turning her attention back to Clemens, Dox put her PaDD on the table and began stretching. "She does excellent work. And I'm glad to be of any assistance I can be, Lieutenant. Although after reviewing your technical specs, I don't know much what you can really learn from me. I'm, at best, proficient in Llaekh-ae'rl and only showed the security team a few moves here and there."

The anxious young Romulan skipped over mentioning the three mercenaries that had kidnapped Doctor Dael back during Shore leave that she had put in critical condition, nearly killing them with her bare hands. Though, since she had made a full report, she assumed that the ships Chief Intelligence Officer was likely well aware of that.

"Now, now, Lieuten'nt- we all need tuh update owuh toolkits whenevuh we see new tools used. Ah've got a few derhtee tricks that Intel gave me, but new puh'spect'ves ah how we stay alive in thuh face of evil, out heah," he offered gently, noticing the change in her demeanor- having, indeed, read the reports on what she'd had to do to rescue the Doctor, he knew she'd hurt her own soul when she'd injured the despicable filth who were trying to doom her friend to slavery and worse. He spoke seriously, for a moment, his bushy brows knitted in compassion.

"Yuh did whut ya had ta do, t'save 'em. They'd've been scorch mahks on th'walls if they'd faced a non-Fleetuh." His face lightened, and he nodded, adding, "Now, then. Teach on, Mis'tress ov thuh mahshull ahrts..."

While Dox expected it, it was not a pleasant reminder under any circumstances considering their ultimate fates at the hands of Death, herself. But she righted herself and took a breath as she continued. "Thank you."

"Well, since Ensign Gonadie would be very put out if I came home a walking bruise after this, I feel like a little extra precaution is in order. Our EVA suits only increase strength by a factor of four, but it also offers significant protection for me that will be appreciated and make it easier for us to do this." Then the rotund Romulan spoke to the room. "Computer. Authorization, Dox. M. Lieutenant. Access code 795-X9E. Please initiate EVA Armor up protocols for sparing version."

Dox stood still with her arms out at her side as the shimmering lights of the transporter flared for a moment around her. In its wake, she was now wearing the metallic crimson plates of her EVA armor, without any of the attached weapons or computer interfaces. Her visored helmet was also replaced with a simple red padded headpiece that wrapped around the sides of her face, leaving the thick red curls of her hair to pop out the open top. As it completed, Dox called up to the room. "Excellent. Thank you."

=^=You're Welcome, Lieutenant Dox.=^= The computer replied with a chirp as Dox grinned.

Swinging her arms back and forth for a moment, Dox wanted to be sure the suit was properly affixed and functioning. "Okay. Well, as you likely are aware, Llaekh-ae'rl is a Romulan martial art translated to mean 'Laughing Death'. When Commander Paris asked me to do a demonstration with the new Security officers, she specifically asked me to show a few defensive moves, holds and the like. Which was a little tricky since most of this is all kind of designed to just... well... mess people up as quickly and efficiently as possible. And to be honest, I'm not the best teacher in the world and I doubt you need a basics refresher."

Walking over, Dox stood in the center of the room. "So... instead... what I can do is show you the advantages you can glean from this. As it is, you've got 8 inches of height and a full foot of additional reach on me. To say nothing of far more power. However, there are ways to take that and make it your advantage as much as possible which is a big part of Llaekh-ae'rl."

There are very few scenarios where I'm the biggest or strongest person in the room, so I have to compensate for that. And the number one rule is never make the first move. Always let your opponent lead, because when someone leads, they give themselves open spots every time. "Please, just throw a basic punch at my head."

The IntelGineer nodded, and assumed a Fleet security stance, then moved in, doing standard anti-telegraphy tactics to mask which hand would actually be coming in for the strike.

He didn't decide until the last split second, and his left fist lashed out in a controlled strike, aiming for the nerve point at Dox's right jaw hinge. While the arm wasn't fully-cybernetic, it was augmented, and under controlled conditions could still deliver a far more powerful strike than any fully-human fist would be able to. There was a shimmer that rippled down all of his limbs just before the arm lanced toward her, the result of the SIF systems auto-sensing a high-velocity impact "approaching" one of his extremities.

While Dox was expecting a fast blow, she barely bobbed her head back out of the way fast enough as Clemens' fist sailed just inches from her face as she sidestepped to her left slightly. At the same time, with a quickness belied by her stocky frame, she brought her arms up. The right arm hooked around the wrist as the punch whipped by and her left arm snapped with medium force with a palm strike just above the elbow, forcing his arm straight for a second. With his arm in position, she shifted her weight to swing her right foot in front of his on the ground.

But rather than follow through, Dox simply released his arm and stepped back. "Fantastic. And you barely telegraphed at all. One lesson so many instructors lean on that's complete nonsense is to look you opponents in the eye to know when they move. You watch their shoulders and their hips because that's where all the energy comes from in a strike. And that would have laid me out had it connected."

"With Llaekh-ae'r, one of the core tenants is that if an arm attacks you, kill the arm. Now, with your augmentations, your elbow would be sore at best if I applied full force. But even someone my size doing that can arm lock a Vulcan for a long enough to do some damage. On a non-augmented human, even a moderate amount of force and that elbow can be shattered at the joint and that arm is no longer a threat." Dox continued.

"From there, with the arm under your control, you have a massive number of maneuvers you can use to control, incapacitate or simply devastate an opponent. For example..." She walked up to Clemens and pressed her hand against his side right under his right rib cage.

"Considering the nerve you were aiming at, I'm sure you know that a proper strike to the vagal nerve right here will shut the liver down in most humanoids. Just be careful on me or any other Vulcanoids. As I'm sure you can imagine, that strike is taught extensively in Llaekh-ae'r because it's essentially a one-punch kill done correctly on Romulans." She paused for a moment. "You keep your liver here, that's where my heart is."

As she demonstrated the technique, and noted her cautions for the sparring, Sam nodded at each, making certain to actively-acknowledge each point, so there was no possibility of miscommunication. Mistakes with the strength of twenty (or more) men could and likely would be fatal.

"Ah'm gonna be as careful as possible, but let's make shuh Miss Com'putah knows 'zacktly what we're tryin' to prevent," The Spooky Action At Close Range looked up, as though he were talking to a bird in mid-flight, and said, "Deah Smaht Guhl, didja get all Miss Dox'n I wuz tawkin' 'bout, relatin' t'not causin' ennah real inj'ries?"

From overhead, a voice replied, "Why, certainleh, Lewtenant Claym'ns. Ah would nevah dream of cawzin' ennay hahm to any of mah crew. Rest assur'd, y'all will be safe in mah care." Unlike Clemens, her accent was light and airy, more of a lilt than a drawl.

Clemens beamed at the response, nodding. "Thankya, deah ladeh."

Looking up at the room, Dox knitted her eyebrows, confused, taking a moment to process what she was reasonably sure was just said. After a few seconds of parsing through the accents, Dox shook her head with a grin. "So, Lieutenant Clemens. How would you prefer we proceed? Would you like to go one move at a time or just go at it and learn as we go?"

He assumed a basic starter stance. "Let's jus' see how we react tuh each uthuh, throw it all at thuh wahl, an' see whut sticks?"

He began circling her at a discrete distance.

In the center of the room, Dox stood motionless for a moment, watching Clemens' body language. She worked through her options and mentally re reviewed his capabilities. He was impossibly strong and remarkably fast. In a real fight, she had zero chance of surviving and she knew it. But this was just sparring, so she focused on what she needed to know.

What language did the ginger Intel Chief really speak. With her left, she threw a wide, telegraphed punch to his side. It broke her first rule of combat, never make the first move, but it was for a purpose.

Sam obviously saw it coming, even before his collision alert system told him so, but he wanted to see what Dox had to offer. He feinted a dodge, but it was not quite fully-implemented. He made sure his structural integrity field was suppressed down to only enough to not let his cybernetics cause his biologicals injury, around the 10 percent mark.

As the punch landed, he noted the impact angle, speed, and newtons per square inch delivered. It stung, and he'd likely have a little bruise there, but his plated ribs and vital protection mesh system kept the structural damage minimized.

Nonetheless, it was a force, and rather than resisting it, he blew air out to lessen the impact, as his basic Starfleet "Fleet-Fu" courses had taught him. Normally, there was a "dance backward" move that accompanied any sure-fire hit, as part of the maneuver, but he stood his ground.

As soon as she connected, he lashed out his own left arm, aiming for her right shoulder, as an attempt to impart a clockwise spin on her, while her balance was busy driving her strike.

Not looking forward to taking a hit from the bionic Chief, Dox instead slid back on her feet, leaning back just out of the way as Clemens' swing again just barely missed her chin. He was extremely quick which was getting Dox nervous, which she didn't like in a fight scenario, as she was now wide open.

At his miss, Sam, ducked down into a roll to her left, coming out of it behind her. His recovery wasn't the best, because he was a bit unbalanced in limb strength, since the auto-balancing systems were turned off to make the fight more fair, so he stumbled backward a bit, as he came up, presenting his right side to her by about 15 degrees, facing slightly away from her.

Stumbling back, off balance, Dox felt herself begin to panic before a calm washed over her and her eyes went slightly flat. Her Mother's training was kicking in and she righted herself and shot a quick, tight jab around under Sam's arms towards his ribs.

"Oof!" escaped Sam's mouth, as the impact moved his ribs inward, despite reinforcement. This caused a shockwave to propagate toward his vagas nerve and aortic artery, causing both the sound and a blood pressure spike along the aorta, flying up toward his heart, and down toward his solar plexus. The result? A moment of blindness, caught breath, and further loss of balance.

The experienced Intel agent toppled like a tree felled by straightline winds in a storm. He rolled up on an elbow, eyes tearing up involuntarily, and gasped out, "...poynt tuh yuh..." then worked to catch his breath.

Instantly, Dox snapped back and looked down in shock. "Hnave!" She cursed in Rihan.

"I... I'm sorry, Lieutenant. I got... I let myself get carried away." In reality, in her moment of panic Dox had let a lifetime of harsh conditioning from her task mistress of a mother overtake her. She stepped back then forward, hesitantly offering her hand. "Are you okay?"

Clemens struggled to his feet, rubbing his ribs. "Gotta work on sumpin' t'keep uh bad guy from tryin' that..." he said, with a wan smile.

"That wuz sum fanceh wuhk, Miss Dawx...ah'm impressed." He chuckled, adding, "...ah'll be analyzing that move foah days, tryin' t'werk up a countuh-move."

"Uh... thanks." Dox didn't feel overtly proud in the moment, but tried focusing on the purpose of the session which was a teaching exercise. "You're keeping your guard high, but I'm nearly a foot shorter than you. Keep your arms looser and lower and you can defend a broader area by redirecting hits rather than a hard block."

She stepped back and loosened up again. "Okay... whenever you're ready."

He nodded, signaling readiness, having caught his breath."Let's go."

This time, no longer feeling each other out, both officers had an idea of what to expect from each other. Their capabilities and limitations were now slightly clearer as they slowly circled for a long moment before either made a move. Then, after a tense few seconds of stillness, Dox moved. This time not with a faint, but with a legitimate strike to Clemens' sternum that the Intel Chief Quickly deflected. And with that, the fight was joined with each striking faster each time as the pair circled each other, striking, blocking, deflecting and following up. For a full thirty seconds, the two moved, neither landing a blow until finally the ginger spook did the unexpected and ducked BELOW one of Dox's higher jabs and tagged her in the mid-section with a swift straight thrust that knocked the hefty Romulan woman back off of her feet.

Never losing a moment, Dox rolled back up to her feet with a slight grin at Clemens' move. She was officially enjoying herself now.

Running back into the fray, the moves got quicker and more powerful. Clemens kept his own augmented bionics leveled down to more closely match his opponent so as to not do any harm, but otherwise, no punches were pulled. As they progressed, each fighter tagged the other a few times, each giving as good as they got. Taking out Clemens' knee with a sidekick, Dox threw the enhanced Intel Chief to the mat, but before she could follow up, his swift legs knocked her back hard against the padded walls.

Separated, the two rose to their feet, now clearly beginning to both show a little fatigue, Dox shook her head and let out a deep, gravelly laugh. "Commander Paris was right. This IS a weird way to unwind, but it is fun."

The Missourian Master of MicroManaging Mischief leaned back against the wall, a knee up, foot against it, not unlike the pose he'd struck just before entering the initial welcome briefing when he'd first come aboard.

"Ah reckon we oughta take a break. Ah feel like ah've been thru a whole s'mestuh class on yuh fightin' style," he opined, adding "...which is pretteh damned nifteh. It scales up an' down as much as ya need fuh thuh sit'yashun."

Sliding back against the padded wall, Dox fell to a sitting position to rest, her arms draped over the tops of her knees. "It's... It's something that without which, I probably wouldn't be here right now. There were more than a few times I had to use that before joining Starfleet that could have gone bad for me."

Relaxing a bit more, Dox let out a slight chuckle. "Of course, it also almost got me kicked out of the academy. So you take the good with the bad, I suppose."

Sam slid down the wall, slowly, bottoming out with his back supported, wincing a bit, as the workout and earlier shock started to settle in. "Aw, them's jus' jealous folks that can't handle gettin' beat by someone they'd figgered fer an easy mark. You got yerself here, fair 'n square. I know a cheater when I see one- and you're not crooked." He took a draw off his water bottle. "It wuz mah seventeenth buthday b'fore ah learn'd t'listen t'mah instincts as well as ah should've been doin' all along." He wiped his brown with his towel, but the sweat just kept rolling out.

"Well, I didn't need to put him in the hospital, but he didn't need to be checking girls off of some kind of sick 'alien lay' checklist." Dox chuckled, stretching her neck out. "But thanks. Being Romulan, it's generally just assumed I'm cheating or lying at everything half the time so I appreciate it."

"Aw, shucks, Miss Dawx. A lady oughta be assumed t'be tellin' th'truth by d'fault, anyway, 'less she's shown tehndensees t'be d'ceptive awlreddy." Sam hung his head a bit, after another big draw on the water, and took a deep breath. "Ah sweah...ain't enough time in thuh day t'git everythin' done an' sleep, too. Ah must be gettin' old..."

He perked up, eyes bright, with the patented Clemens Grin on his face, and added, "R'mind me t'tell yuh about th'time I...about th'time I...about the time I...about..." Face frozen, his eyes rolled back.

And he slumped over.

A klaxon went off, and a worried-sounding matronly voice emanated from the sudden holographic projection hovering above Clemens' head.

"M.A.U.R.E.E.N. Protocol Engaged! Assistance required! Assistance required! Administering aid!"

Across the room, Dox shot up in shock, cursing in Rihan. "Imirrhlhhse!! Clemens?! CLEMENS?!?"

Bolting back to her feet, Dox slid across the room on her knees at his side, feeling for a pulse. "SAM!! What the hell?! DOX TO SICK BAY!!! Medical Emergency in Holodeck one! Lieutenant Clemens... he... he just collapsed!!"

TO BE CONTINUED

CLEMENS WILL RETURN IN:

"CRASHING THE DANDY COOT"