It was the next best thing to flying, or so he told himself as the wooden staff windmilled through the air at his side. He brought it down in a wide arc over his right shoulder again, and again, and again, and eventually he wasn’t sure if he was moving the staff or if the staff was moving him. It didn’t matter, though. All that mattered was the whoosh of the staff as it cut through the air, the rush of the river as it raced around the stones under his feet…
The swoosh of the holodeck door as it opened and allowed reality to intrude on his meditative moment.
“I’ve been waiting for five minutes,” said Anand, standing at the threshold. “Which isn’t very long by most people’s standards, but is very alarming in Bohkat Time. I thought you’d died.”
Bohkat switched hands in one fluid motion, and began sweeping the staff over his left shoulder instead. His gaze remained unfocused. “I did not.” Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. “Why are you waiting?”
He couldn’t help but watch out of the corner of his eye as Anand threw up his hands in exasperation. “Because we have a new officer transferring aboard from the USS Sunset City! And I know you know about it because the event is marked off with a little green checkmark on your calendar! And we always meet the new officers together!”
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
“…But they’re not usually security officers,” said Anand, crossing his arms over his chest as the realization hit.
Bohkat began alternating left and right sweeps of the staff. A leaf fell from the trees above and danced in the figure eight eddies he created. “Send him here as soon as he’s on board,” he said, not bothering to format the statement as a request. He didn’t need to.
“Why? So you can beat him with a stick?”
Bohkat finally let the staff swing to a halt, the better to favor Anand with an irritated glare that would hopefully communicate just how asinine he found that statement. Unfortunately, the glimmer in Anand’s eyes said that he found it amusing enough for the both of them.
“Wait, I know,” said Anand, waving his hands in front of him as he set the scene. “You’re going to make him dodge the stick! Test his mettle and his reflexes!” He swung an imaginary staff through the air to illustrate his point.
Bohkat rolled his eyes and resumed his figure eights. As long as Anand had an appointment to keep, the one-sided conversation would end itself anyway.
Just not without a parting remark. “I’ve half a mind to become a security officer myself, just to see if I could get more than three words out of you,” said Anand as he disappeared down the hall.
Meanwhile…
Some people hated escalators. Some people hated elevators. Dusty McNeill hated transporters. It didn’t help that he largely didn’t understand how they worked, even when it was explained to him; he was not a technically-inclined man even before he joined Starfleet. All he needed to know was how phaser pistols worked and how to repair them in the field, along with various other weapons. He wasn’t stupid by any stretch of the imagination, he just had different priorities. Foremost being the well-being of those he was charged to protect.
Anyway. Transporters. He scowled at the area he had to step into in order to be sent to his new duty assignment, unsure of where he needed to stand so that the thing got him onto the right ship, in one piece, without any of his component parts out of place. That was his biggest concern with transporters – he had no guarantees, no proof positive that being scrambled into a bajillion tiny pieces and beamed someplace to be reassembled on the spot didn’t leave at least one of those bajillion tiny pieces missing or out of place. There was just no convincing him that, in this year of stardate 2403, they had worked all the bugs out. He’d hated transporters aboard the USS Sunset City, and he hated them now. He was certain he’d hate them aboard the USS Babylon too.
Dusty could feel his heart pounding in his chest, but he refused to admit it might be fear. Nope, it was just regular nerves from meeting his new commanding officer, that was all. Stiffly he entered the transporter and squared up on one of the pads on the floor. Taking a deep breath, he practically stood at attention, glaring at the oblivious transporter operator until the familiar, hated sound of the infernal device activating cut through his brain like a laser saw. He closed his eyes and held his breath.
And when he opened them again he was in the transporter room of the Babylon. And there was a man (or male-presenting person) in a red uniform with more pips than he had, apparently waiting for him.
Forcing his feet to move, Dusty strode confidently (he hoped) out of the transporter, as straight-backed and yet as casually as he could manage. He allowed a warm yet professional smile to cross his face even as he was sizing up the other man. He’d read that his new boss, one Nevahl Bohkat, was Rigellian, but he had no idea if that meant some flavor of visually distinctive. Was this Bohkat? Or someone else?
