Tossin' Hoops

Posted on Mon May 2nd, 2022 @ 5:51am by Delaney O'Callaghan & Chief Helmsman Kalahaeia t'Leiya & Beya & Leiddem Kea (*) & Curtis Vaan
Edited on on Mon May 2nd, 2022 @ 5:51am

Mission: Mission 15: Adrift
Location: Converted cargo space
Timeline: MD -7
3529 words - 7.1 OF Standard Post Measure

"I vote we just find some place to park, with really great restaurants, and an entertainment strip, and entire holo-driven complexes, and we just stay there a while. We can get different jobs, right? Ones that don't involve piles of bodies left to decompose."

Interspersed between the sound of a ball hitting deck plating, Delaney's 'suggestion' was typical of her normal attempts to find the frippery in a situation and plunge headwards into utter optimism. There was a tautness to her tone, though, and as she passed the ball to Leiddem, it probably didn't take a telepath to realise she was still trying to process their gruesome discovery. In fact, once they were safely back on board, there had been a definitely stretch of very uncommon silence from the woman which, if nothing else, proved that she knew well enough when life was serious enough that it couldn't be negotiated with. Laney wasn't the type to stay down for long but it certainly wasn't unusual that her first attempt at decompression was physical exertion. She was just competitive enough and, having a natural athletic tendency, preferred the adrenaline rush of a good workout to any other form of stress-release; at least the kind you could enjoy in mixed company.

“Maybe in the future.” Leiddem murmured thinking back three months for a moment before he came back to the there and then. He did not want to think on it anymore. He took the ball and spun away and bounced it around before throwing it back.

Dressed normally - as in, not dressed for any kind of physical activity at all - Curtis trundled his way into the open space. "Oh. Wow, a basketball court? That's...that's clever." He tried to sound enthusiastic but failed. Sports had never really been his thing, after all, but Delaney's insistence that he come along and 'appreciate the effort' had managed to do enough to guilt-trip him into attendance.

Kali was still mostly just exploring the various spaces on the ship, but the basketball invite had seemed a decent way to get in some physical activity and socializing, though had also led to one slender well-groomed eyebrow creeping up dubiously: She was not, historically, anyone's first choice for basketball, for reasons that were, well, obvious on sight. Her classmates had shot past her in height by by her early teens, and the only place she might have had a chance to be called 'tall' was on Ferenginar. 'Short and slender' didn't mean 'without muscle' though, it appeared; her purple workout t-shirt and mid-thigh shorts revealed respectable muscle definition on both her arms and her legs. She tossed her backpack of stuff onto one of the benches and bent over to start some warm-up stretches with a wave at Delaney, Leiddem, and Curtis.

Round and round, back to Leiddem, thwarting his attempts to get the ball off her, Laney took a shot and then jostled her friend, putting shoulder to his arm for his efforts in being more of a nuisance than actually effective. She routinely got frustrated with the boofhead of a security officer because he was capable, he just preferred to mess with her. Leaving him to grab the ball, Delaney turned to wave at Kali and then fixed Curtis with the scrutiny of one who wasn't exactly surprised but still wasn't likely to let him off the hook that easily.

"It'd be more clever if you helped me trounce this twit."

"What's a twit?" Beya asked, arriving a bit late as had become usual since they'd lost yet another doctor. She was ready for a chance to move and workout a bit though, having stripped off her scrubs and changed into short jogging shorts and sports bra. "Is that a basketball term?" It was an honest question - all she knew of basketball was that it involved tall athletic people doing some sort of running dance in shorts.

"This is a twit," Delaney declared, having jumped onto Leiddem's back in an attempt to bat the ball from his hands that way, clutching hold as attempts to spin her free proved futile. "Little help, Curtis!"

Leiddem could have easily got her off but he decided to just close his eyes and spin wildly. “She calls me a twit yet she can keep her hands off me.” He teased finally stopping spinning as even with his eyes closed it was starting to get to him.

"Help? How?" Curtis groaned, tentatively getting closer and trying to avoid swinging limbs. "I'm like half his size. And the most uncoordinated kid in the class."

"Just grab the ball!"

Three older brothers had given Delaney a vice-like grip, and whilst her head was spinning, she'd used the momentum to cling like a koala. It proved to be a decent recovery position since it left Leiddem responsible for piggy-backing her around for a moment. "And pass it to Kali. Beya, you draw the short straw; you're on Lei's team." Flicking the Betazoid in the back of the head, the redhead wrestled for a moment to untangle herself, thwarting an attempt to keep her hostage, and then stood a moment, hands on hips, to catch her breath. "Curtis, you can sub." Her tone was resigned but at least he was here.

"So is that how this is played? If someone has the ball you jump on their back?" Beya asked, puzzled. the couple games she'd seen in the sports bar section of her mom's lounge had involved people bumping and sometimes elbowing other players, but she didn't recall seeing anyone go piggyback. On the other hand, those games had a lot more players and human sports names were confusing - there were at least two completely different sports that were both called 'football'.

“No, this is Delaney flirting.” Leiddem assured as he finally let her go with a nudge. “I can sub if you want to play, Curtis.” Leiddem called over, good-natured. He did not want anyone left out when they had just come to hang. He did not take it personally. “The tall one can sit out easily leave you short added to it.”

"And that is Leiddem trying to weasel out of getting his ass beat," Delaney grinned, approaching Beya after retrieving the ball. "But no, basketball is technically non-contact, and mostly involves trying to get the ball off the other team before they shoot it through their basket, so that you can then shoot it through yours." Passing the Orion the ball, Laney then turned to where Kali was warming up, "You played at all, Kali?"

"Not often, but yeah." Kali grabbed the loose hair over her shoulders and upper back into a double handful and worked it into a quick braid with nimble, speedy fingers, then swept the braid up and pinned it. "Not for a few years though since the last time."

"Good enough for me," Delaney grinned, passing the woman the ball. "You okay to show Beya the ropes?" At this rate, she'd just take on all of them herself if it meant sorting teams happened sooner rather than later. Rounding on her two friends, Laney's hands found her hips again and she raised her eyebrows. "Well?" She glanced from Curtis to Leiddem. "You two want to duke it out or are you just going to sit and gawp?"

Kali wasn't sure she remembered enough of the rules to teach them (in fact she was pretty sure she didn't) but if nothing else supposed she could deal out the basic concepts. "So, other than putting the ball through the basket - which is how you get points - there's a lot of trying to get the ball from the team that has it, or trying to keep the ball, if you have it. When you have the ball, you can't just carry it around in your hands you have to dribble it, which is...just bouncing it between your hand, on top of the ball, and the floor. You can't use both hands, though, unless you're standing in one spot, so it has to be just one hand at a time dribbling the ball." Kali nodded at Beya and the ball. "And when you pass the ball to people, you don't want to pass it to the other team, just the people on your team." Kali thought it was actually fairly unclear who was on which team at the moment in fact; but then again, there also seemed to be some physical contact happening that she was pretty sure would've led to a foul back in her high school gym class games, so certain niceties of the rules probably weren't in play here, either. "Basically, we want to get the ball through the hoop, and not let the other team get the ball through the hoop."

Curtis leaned over to Leiddem. "You uh...get the feeling they've orchestrated this all to kick our asses into complete humiliation? Because that's the feeling I'm getting right now."

“Standard day for me mate.” Leiddem said brightly. He could take whatever was dished out on the chin without a problem. It just did not bother him, it was not mean so there was no need to get twisted about it all.

Beya rolled her eyes. "As if we couldn't do that a hundred other ways." Taking the basketball from Kali, she weighed it in her palm. "I've seen dribbling on a game cast. Sort of like this?" She dropped it then bent and slapped it on the rebound only to have the ball shoot back harder than expected and nearly hit her in the face. "Oh! It's bouncier than I thought."

"Yeah; it's sorta deceptive that way - seems like it wouldn't bounce well being that hard a surface to the touch, but it does. It kinda...reflects out the energy you put into it." Since Kali herself had been described by multiple people over the years - most often weary superior officers - as being too much energy packed into too small a package, one could only assume that most basketballs she had ever touched had possibly gone zooming around the court like an unhinged ping-pong ball, if the physics of basketball had truly been that simple.

“Bright side of you do knock yourself out with the ball and force I am a fully trained medic.” Leiddem declared as he retrieved the ball from where it had bounced off too. “Curtis can play. I can retrieved balls and whatever else subs do.” It was not like he needed the exercise after being in gym and going for run around cargo bays.

"Right, decision's made," Delaney declared, impatient to get started. To accompany her marching orders, the redhead moved behind Curtis, placed her hands on his shoulders and pushed him into centre court. "You try to keep up with Beya, I'll tag Kali." Delaney grinned at the Romulan. "Hopefully she doesn't have anything hidden in her shoes."

"The smart addition here would be anti-gravity plating in the soles." Kali snarked. "But that's way too expensive just to score some basketball points." Notably absent was any confirmation or denial of whether anything else was or wasn't hidden somewhere in the pair of purple-blue gym shoes she was wearing.

Leiddem said nothing other than grin and move to sit down and rest for a moment after everything that day. It was not something that came naturally to him at all. He normally just did not stop and normally neither did his mouth but he was taking the hint to not do or say anything and to let the others shine.

"Okay, so Curtis is my teammate and we have to take out you and Kali," Beya stated with a shurg. she had only the vaguest idea of how this game was supposed to be played, but took the Orion attitude there could be an advantage in that: with virutally no rules defined, nearly anything was permissible. "How do we start?"

At this point, and she could feel Leiddem enjoying himself way too much on the sidelines about it, Delaney was about to throw the towel in and just take on all three herself. Being stuck at a point where they couldn't even determine partnerships without convoluting the process, the redhead gave up on trying to balance things out and she threw her hands up in Kali's direction. "Just start play," she pleaded, "Half-court rules. Return to centre line to reset. Though honestly," she added, jogging down towards the basket, "this is just going to turn into free-for-all, I can feel it."

Half-court rules? Beya shook her head. She wasn't even clear on whatever normal court rules were. "Free-for-all - I know that one! It's what the CEO calls Calvin-ball." And with that, she went for it, grabbing the ball and dashing to the hoop. She paused below it just long enough to bounce it - once - and snatch the rebound as she did a ballet leap straight up to tip it into the net. "Like that?" she asked with a big grin as she landed.

“Close enough.” Kali shrugged and decided she was giving up on trying to figure out who was on what team, because it was possibly proving even harder to tease out than ‘who is on what side of a power struggle in the RSE Senate’ had been back during her SFI days, and that was saying something. She dove for the ball as it bounced after going through the hoop, in a move that was less of Beya’s calculated grace and more speed meeting unerring accuracy; less ballerina, more hummingbird; and started to dribble the ball, rapid shifting back and forth in an attempt to try and set herself up for a decent shot, eyeing the rest of the court with an eye glint that might have reminded some uncomfortably of a velociraptor on the hunt.

Feeling a little bit like a deer in headlights, Curtis watched them move around him with a mixture of confusion and despair. "I think they're going to win," he explained to Delaney, feeling particularly concerned that he was the one that would be letting the side down.

"Just stay on Beya," Delaney instructed, without really offering any insight as to how he might achieve that. Her attention was fixated on Kali, however, shepherding from several metres back to provide at least some measure of defensive obstacle whilst creating space that would require the Romulan to come to her. Delaney, quick and agile in her own way, had the benefit of height and long limbs, as well as decently impressive hand-eye coordination for a human, but it was often strategies rooted in psychology that gave her the edge. Being the youngest in the family, especially one where even the extended branches had only produced male offspring, taught you a few things. She bounced on the balls of her feet and grinned, arms spread wide, and ignored the fact that, somewhere behind her, Curtis was doing an abysmal job of keeping up with the spritely Orion.

Kali considered the way Delaney seemed to move, and the possible options for strategy or approach vectors, dribbling closer with erratic shifts here and there, debating the merits of trying to duck under the taller woman, but finally going with getting as close as she thought she could manage, still darting back-and-forth, and abruptly levered herself up in a jump that was definitely less graceful and pulled in less height than Beya's, paired with a longer shot up and over.

Making a quick assessment of Curtis' attempt at guarding - apparently he wasn't on her team? - Beya went for the dodge least likely to cause damage. She darted in and tickled him.

"YAH!" Curtis' squeal was an order of pitches higher than most might have expected. "What was that!? Hey-" he was distracted by complaining as she darted past him and collected the ball. Open-mouthed, he looked sheepishly at Delaney again, a 'what did you expect' expression forming on his face.

Leiddem laughed from the sidelines and shook his head at the cheating that was going on. It was going to be a dirty match. “Tickle her back Curtis.” He called.

"Catch me if you can!" Beya called back flirtatiously, as she bounced the ball once to count a dribble and then leaped toward the basket for a layup.

"Ohhh, she is a flirt," Leiddem called encouragingly laughing at the obvious discomfort his friend was feeling. It was good only because it was not him being the one played with but he was much more inclined to play the game.

Normally, there would have been a reasonable chance that Delaney would have expressed some frustration at the disintegration of her best efforts to remain competitive. It turned out, however, and was hardly a surprise to anyone, that the best way to make her forget about winning basketball was to stumble upon a topic that made her friends turn purple.

Hands on her hips once more, she grinned at Curtis, and with long, slow strides, actually exited the court to stand beside Leiddem.

"Your turn to shine, Curt. No mercy."

"Whuh...who...?" the young Risian looked from person to person, suddenly feeling as though all the attention was back on him. "Am I being set up here or something? You told me you wanted to play this ball game and now we're chasing each other around..." Normally he'd have been a little happy to have some attention, but this definitely felt like they were starting to gang up.

"Hey, to be fair, that's mostly all this game is."

The devious grin on Delaney's face didn't go a long way to allaying Curtis' suspicions, but to attribute too much forward planning to her motives was probably expecting too much. Delaney was, after all, more the type to just take advantage of situations as they cropped up.

"And she's playing dirty anyway. At this point, it's fight back or admit defeat."

Despite her encouragement, it was beyond Delaney's self-control not to take some pity on her friend. Curtis, looking out-of-place as it was in his ordinary clothing, looked about five seconds away from refusing to ever turn up again. Sharing a glance with Leiddem, a mutual moment of despair at ever getting the Risian to branch out away from the computers he cosied up to, Delaney then relented and moved back onto the court. "Here, stand under the net and..."

She stopped as the unmistakable splosh of water brought into the sharp focus the puddle she'd just stepped into. Frowning, Delaney opened her mouth to remark when the slow dribble of cold water down the back of her neck prompted a squeak and an immediate glance upwards. "Tell me that's not a water pipe leaking."

“It’s not.” Leiddem lied as he stood up and walked underneath the leak instantly getting wet. They would need to try and stem the flow to save the water supply. “Games off. Delaney, if I give you a foot up, can you damage control?” He wondered thinking she would be the most likely to agree.

"What am I patching it with?" It wasn't a refusal, and Laney had already maneuverer herself for the boost, but certain practicalities demanded she acknowledge that she hadn't exactly turned up with a repair kit in tow. "Curtis, any chance you can just shut down this section until we figure out why it's leaking?"

It was a bright idea that more or less came too late; as soon as was she nearly at face-level with the problem, Delaney realised the ominous looking bulge in the ceiling plating was a lot more serious than a five-second repair job was going to fix. "Oh sh.."

Utter deluge. Though Delaney copped most of it to the face and was instantly drenched, there was plenty left for Leiddem and anyone else in range. Frozen in place as the sensation of being doused by frigid water ensured she'd be awake for a few extra hours, Delaney blinked water droplets from her eyes as the Betazoid lowered her back down and dripped in silence for a few seconds.

"I think we might need to get Engineering down here."

Kali shivered, caught by some of the deluge to a rather lesser degree on the fringes of it but the cold temperature of the water a shock against bare skin. In this, years of waterskiing in her teenage years and the reflexes it had trained benefited her when the splash of it had first hit her; reflexively closing her mouth and nose and holding her breath; the first rule of ‘swimming while vulcanoid’ was ‘avoid breathing in water’, the amounts of which your lungs could tolerate taking in were a lot less than what human lungs could. She stepped a bit further from the gyms’ new water feature, blowing air out and wiping a hand across her face, glaring up at the ceiling-turned-waterfall.