JPL ~ Lieutenant Entek & Ensign Peters ~ "It'll Get 'Em Every Time"

Posted on 241502.23 @ 11:01pm by Lieutenant Katilya Entek MD, PsyD

Mission: Holy Cow

In a more remote part of the ship's gym an area of the floor had been cleared and from the ceiling hung a long turquoise silk ribbon that just skimmed the floor. It had not been there before and yet at the same time looked like it had always been there. Passing crewmen paid it no attention as they continued their own workout routines. A song started playing quietly from nowhere in particular causing a few heads to turn as the petite but toned frame of a Cardassian female, dressed in a black dancing costume, climbed the ribbon as easy as a monkey climbing a tree. Her eyes were a muted gold and despite the ridges and scales of her Cardassian heritage her features were soft. Yet there was something in her eyes that portrayed a colder hardness than her appearance let on.

She sat, half-way up the silk ribbon with her legs brought up to her chest and arms wrapped around like she was hugging an invisible pet. As the music built in tempo and the melody begun she dropped her hands allowing herself to fall; being held by the strength of her legs. With poise she turned upside down; twisting at the waist to bring herself back up to the side in a single clean move that matched the fast tempo of the music. She reached up the turquoise ribbon and climbed a little before twisting effortlessly to face into the main room. Letting her long legs drop straight down with elegance she moved again like a snake twisting and contorting her petite frame around the ribbon in almost a hypnotic way.

The twists and the turns continued as she used all of her core strength to hold her body as stiff as a board in complex shapes at all angles on the ribbon. Manoeuvring herself into an upside down position she wrapped her legs through and hung there a while before pulling it around her waist and turning at some speed encasing herself like a caterpillar in a cocoon. At the right beat of the music she allowed herself to fall, unravelling and spinning with such grace before twisting her waist backwards and pulling herself up into another beautiful aerial pose. As she did this she allowed the ribbon to separate for the first time, revealing itself to be two pieces. Holding onto each she pulled herself up and arched her body extending one leg straight down and the other at a ninety degree angle. She glanced down; a few people had stopped to watch which caused a smile to creep across her lips. She was breathing heavily by this point, trying to keep her control as she moved like water flowing around the two pieces of ribbon. The next series of steps ended with her holding both pieces in her hands, fists clenched tightly as if she were hanging on for her life.

Slowly and purposefully she extended her long legs out to the sides and brought them up, wrapping them around the two pieces of ribbon and allowing herself to let go with her hands and fall. Her hair, while pulled back hung down and she watched the room from her unusual vantage point. Breathing deeply the music built again and without warning she twisted allowing the ribbons to wrap around her thighs giving her the leverage she needed to spin into a forward summersault and weave her body back round through a series of controlled shapes and back again before launching herself backwards into a flip and spiral as she weaved through the ribbons in the air like ivy on a fence.

Creating an almost swing-seat she breathed heavily as she paused for just a moment. With a final push she wrapped the ribbon round herself as she continued to weave and in a final crescendo unravelled and spiralled downwards to the floor. Moments before she hit it; she let go of the rope completely and landed, cat-like, with one leg stretched out and the other crouched. Slowly she raised one arm straight upwards and purposefully brought her other arm to extend following the outstretched leg. Holding it for just a moment she allowed herself to catch her breath before jumping up and looking at the ribbons with respect and appreciation.

A few crewmen clapped at the spectacle and moved on. Reaching for her water the Cardassian that appeared from nowhere drank gulping down the cold, clear liquid like she'd been lost in a desert and was dying of thirst.

Jon Peters stood with his jaw on the floor as he watched the stone skinned creature refresh herself; he make no effort to hide his gaping. From his rope climbing efforts, he had an idea how difficult just climbing the ribbon could be... but he could only imagine how much more difficult all the controlled slow movement was. It was only as these thoughts finally finished processing that it even occurred to him to realize the woman he was staring at was Cardassian. This fact was the reason why he continued to stare at her without realizing he was being rude and obvious about it.

Her name was Katilya Entek, she was five foot four with long dark hair although currently that was tied back a little to keep the majority of it out of her face. She'd never considered herself to be much to look at but knew how to work with the hand she had been dealt. She felt the eyes burning into the back of her head, the distinct feeling someone was watching. She slowed her drinking and tossed the bottle down onto her towel and, saying nothing she stretched out her arms. After a moment she decided to confront her spectator and turned quite sharply allowing her hair to flick a little as she brought her golden eyes to assess the man before her. She smiled softly and relaxed a little "did you want to try?" She asked holding out the ribbon teasingly as she became amused by his open-mouthed reaction.

Jon's eyes slowly travelled up the ribbon, as he considered her words and the slight smirk that painted the woman's face. When his gaze reached the ring that the ribbon was affixed to the ceiling by, he finally realized that perhaps he should raise his jaw and stop looking like a city boy on his first day on the farm. Slowly he brought his attention back down to the Cardassian woman, and blue-green met gold as he looked her in the eye.

"I tend to do my climbing with a hunk of rock behind a good solid rope, ma'am," he insisted, a bit of a sheepish and apologetic grin creeping across his face. She didn't seem offended to have caught him looking, so he wasn't sure if an apology was warranted yet. "Where are my manners, Ensign Jon Peters, Engineering." He moved forward, offering his hand to shake.

Katilya took the offered hand and shook it, perhaps a little lighter in touch than she normally would and smiled at the man's comments. "Ribbon is sturdy enough; if you know how to tie it" she said fixing her gaze on him trying to get a reading. 'Bad habit got to stop' she thought to herself as she glanced upwards to where the ribbon was securely fastened. "Katilya, Katilya Entek" she said by way of an introduction and letting go of the outstretched hand and dropping her own to rest on her hip. "So, Jon, you're an engineer huh? What is it you do exactly apart from say long words and try to look impressive?" She teased cocking her head slightly to the side as she read his body language and demeanour.

"Try?" He repeated the word with a little bristle and his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "I'll have you know, I am impressive."

She raised a brow and laughed a little before turning her head briskly and crouching down to grab her towel and pat her neck dry. "Well... You don't look that impressive" she said standing up and looking him over with a sarcastic grin. "Maybe less time staring and more time working out would help?" She quipped.

"I don't usually have exotic creatures arrive unexpectedly in the middle of my gym schedule," he returned, an eyebrow cocked as he bit back a smirk. "I certainly haven't seen you around before. When did you arrive? We haven't had any ships through recently; I usually see a whole mess of requests through engineering even from the most basic of docking requests."

She smiled and shook her head "I'd apologise but you seemed to enjoy the show. I..." She paused and looked around the room as if searching for something "beamed in with a long range transporter" she said with a smile.

"Long range transporter, right," he repeated, his eyebrow arching further towards his hairline. "That must have been a whole bushel of paperwork to wrangle. Did you have enough pens for that?"

Katilya smiled once again "well I knew a guy..." She trailed off and put her hands behind her back and produced two pens clicking the nibs out as if she was going to write. "And I always have enough pens" she added. "It was quite an experience I must admit". She spun them between her fingers before making them vanish as quickly as they had appeared.

"Where did..." Jon muttered, and then shook his head. "I knew a guy too, but he insisted it wasn't suitable for testing on sentient life forms yet. Wouldn't be for going on twenty years yet. Something about the stabilization matrix and the pattern buffers not having enough redundancy for the signal loss that's inherent for anything beyond the current standard range."

She looked at him for a moment, her golden eyes echoing a mischievous glint. "There you go with your long words trying to be impressive. They must have found the correct calibration matrix required to stabilise the annular confinement beam to ensure zero degradation of pattern transfer" she reeled off nonchalantly.

"Simon and I had been talking about it last week, and he didn't say anything about the annular confinement beam," Jon returned with a head shake. "Pflock and I go back to high school; he was only a year ahead of me at the Academy. We're two peas in a pod."

She smiled sweetly and shrugged her shoulders "well last week perhaps but Mark Winters was working on that part of the problem - you can check if you don't believe me".

"Simon has never mentioned a Mark Winters on the program," he insisted. He shook his head and sighed. "You'd think you had a beer in hand, and we were on the front porch of a trailer, with the tale you're weaving here. If you'll excuse me, I still need to finish my workout. It was mighty impressive, your form on the ribbon, and you spin a convincing tale." With a quick nod of his head, such that he looked like he would have tugged the front brim of a hat had he been wearing one, he turned his attention to the elliptical machines.

Katilya gathered up her belongings and caught up with the engineer "well I am surprised Jon, I'd heard they were good friends - bonded over ice cream - Cornettos I think?" She said with a shrug not overly concerned if he'd believed her or not. She smiled at his comments and shook her head slightly "why thank you, guess you weren't that unimpressive - I've had worse first meetings. Enjoy the rest of your workout" she added with a smile as she made to leave the gym. Before she left she leaned on the machine Jon had selected "take care Jon, if you want to work on your trust issues feel free to book an appointment". With that, she was gone almost as quickly as she left the gym.

=/\= End Log =/\=

Lieutenant Katilya Entek MD, PsyD
Chief Counsellor
USS Enterprise NCC-1701 F

Ensgin Jon Peters
Engineering Officer (NPC by Pond)
USS Enterprise NCC-1701 F